"Ants are the most warlike of all animals, with colony pitted
against colony," writes E.O. Wilson, one of the world's most
beloved scientists, "their clashes dwarf Waterloo and Gettysburg."
In Tales from the Ant World, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Wilson
takes us on a myrmecological tour to such far-flung destinations as
Mozambique and New Guinea, the Gulf of Mexico's Dauphin Island and
even his parent's overgrown backyard, thrillingly relating his
nine-decade-long scientific obsession with over 15,000 ant species.
Animating his scientific observations with illuminating personal
stories, Wilson hones in on twenty-five ant species to explain how
these genetically superior creatures talk, smell, and taste, and
more significantly, how they fight to determine who is dominant.
Wryly observing that "males are little more than flying sperm
missiles" or that ants send their "little old ladies into battle,"
Wilson eloquently relays his brushes with fire, army, and
leafcutter ants, as well as more exotic species. Among them are the
very rare Matabele, Africa's fiercest warrior ants, whose female
hunters can carry up to fifteen termites in their jaw (and, as
Wilson reports from personal experience, have an incredibly painful
stinger); Costa Rica's Basiceros, the slowest of all ants; and New
Caledonia's Bull Ants, the most endangered of them all, which
Wilson discovered in 2011 after over twenty years of presumed
extinction. Richly illustrated throughout with depictions of ant
species by Kristen Orr, as well as photos from Wilsons' expeditions
throughout the world, Tales from the Ant World is a fascinating, if
not occasionally hair-raising, personal account by one of our
greatest scientists and a necessary volume for any lover of the
natural world.
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