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Tales from the Ant World
Edward O. Wilson recalls his lifetime with ants, from his first boyhood encounters in the woods of Alabama to perilous journeys into the Brazilian rainforest.
“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.
“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.
213 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 4, 2020
About the author
Edward O. Wilson
201 books2,345 followersEdward Osborne Wilson, sometimes credited as E.O. Wilson, was an American biologist, researcher, theorist, and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, a branch of entomology. A two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, Wilson is known for his career as a scientist, his advocacy for environmentalism, and his secular-humanist ideas pertaining to religious and ethical matters. He was the Pellegrino University Research Professor in Entomology for the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism.
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December 7, 2020
We think we dominate the planet alone. But we don't. Ants far outnumber us and in biomass weigh about the same. Independently we have both evolved communication to a high level and have developed cities, roads, bridge building, farming and armies. Ants like us are aggressive, self-confident and there is no enemy they will not stand up to and attack. Size makes no difference to either of us. But they can also negotiate peace and thereby build co-operative States within a landmass. Ants can be long-lived too, house ants can live for two-three years, and the Queens up to 28 years.
This other world is unknown to us, we aren't even aware of it's immensity and complexity which is just as well as we cannot conquer them any more than they can us, so we co-exist, just fighting little battles when we encounter each other and one of us is disturbed by the other.
Ant navigation and 'talking' in simple sentences.
When I got lost in the Amazon
Ants and map (or photo) reading and learning
The impossibility of eradication
___________________
Notes on reading
Although I've written this here, it is actually a continuation of The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct review. The author was co-author on that book, and this book is actually a 'continuation' or elucidation of that book.
This other world is unknown to us, we aren't even aware of it's immensity and complexity which is just as well as we cannot conquer them any more than they can us, so we co-exist, just fighting little battles when we encounter each other and one of us is disturbed by the other.
Ant navigation and 'talking' in simple sentences.
When I got lost in the Amazon
Ants and map (or photo) reading and learning
The impossibility of eradication
___________________
Notes on reading
Although I've written this here, it is actually a continuation of The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct review. The author was co-author on that book, and this book is actually a 'continuation' or elucidation of that book.
September 7, 2020
Every time I see an ant, I recall from childhood the shock of hearing my not-yet-born-again grandmother bitching about "piss ants" in her kitchen.
We were good Christians and didn't allow Satan to get 'hold of our tongues, causing us to utter words like "piss". Instead, we used the good Christian version, "pee".
My child self somehow sensed that "piss" was an unchristian word, which was confirmed when I got into trouble for asking at home, "Is piss a bad word?".
Thereafter, every time I heard my grandmother griping about those piss ants, I was equally stunned and thrilled. Unfortunately for me, she eventually got born again and stopped using that word, though I suppose I would have outgrown the thrill anyway.
(Satanic piss ants doing a happy dance for getting my grandmother to swear)
I did not, however, outgrow my curiosity of insects. Well, maybe not all insects. Mosquitos? I detest those little MF-ers. (I'm pretty sure using the initials is unchristian too.) However, many insects fascinate me, ants among them.
I love watching them and I love reading about them and I was excited when I saw Tales from the Ant World.
The author is a myrmecologist, meaning someone who studies ants. I was hesitant in the beginning, thinking this was going to turn out to be more memoir than ant facts. Thankfully I was wrong. After a brief introduction of his child self and early fascination with ants (he doesn't say if he too had the thrill of hearing 'piss' spew from the mouth of a grandparent), Mr. Wilson fills the book with ant facts.
Some of my favourites:
•All ants that are active in the social life of their colonies are females
•Ants are the most warlike of all insects, but unlike humans, they send their elderly, not youth, into battle
•There are more than 15,000 known species of ants
•All living ants weigh approximately the same as all living humans. (There are a rough estimate of ten thousand trillion ants on earth)
•"Males are produced from unfertilized eggs, females from fertilized eggs. The mother queen controls the sex of each egg"
•Some species of ants are farmers, raising fungi or "cattle" -- other insects of which they either drink their secretions (bug milk anyone?) or kill and eat for protein.
These and many other cool facts await you in this book.
My only complaint is that the author is forever reminding us that he was a professor at Harvard which got annoying. Yeh, yeh, yeh, it's a prestigious school. But I didn't forget the first time I read it, Mr. Wilson.
Whether you like piss ants or pee ants or carpenter ants or bull ants, if you like ants, you'll find much to enjoy in this book.
We were good Christians and didn't allow Satan to get 'hold of our tongues, causing us to utter words like "piss". Instead, we used the good Christian version, "pee".
My child self somehow sensed that "piss" was an unchristian word, which was confirmed when I got into trouble for asking at home, "Is piss a bad word?".
Thereafter, every time I heard my grandmother griping about those piss ants, I was equally stunned and thrilled. Unfortunately for me, she eventually got born again and stopped using that word, though I suppose I would have outgrown the thrill anyway.
(Satanic piss ants doing a happy dance for getting my grandmother to swear)
I did not, however, outgrow my curiosity of insects. Well, maybe not all insects. Mosquitos? I detest those little MF-ers. (I'm pretty sure using the initials is unchristian too.) However, many insects fascinate me, ants among them.
I love watching them and I love reading about them and I was excited when I saw Tales from the Ant World.
The author is a myrmecologist, meaning someone who studies ants. I was hesitant in the beginning, thinking this was going to turn out to be more memoir than ant facts. Thankfully I was wrong. After a brief introduction of his child self and early fascination with ants (he doesn't say if he too had the thrill of hearing 'piss' spew from the mouth of a grandparent), Mr. Wilson fills the book with ant facts.
Some of my favourites:
•All ants that are active in the social life of their colonies are females
•Ants are the most warlike of all insects, but unlike humans, they send their elderly, not youth, into battle
•There are more than 15,000 known species of ants
•All living ants weigh approximately the same as all living humans. (There are a rough estimate of ten thousand trillion ants on earth)
•"Males are produced from unfertilized eggs, females from fertilized eggs. The mother queen controls the sex of each egg"
•Some species of ants are farmers, raising fungi or "cattle" -- other insects of which they either drink their secretions (bug milk anyone?) or kill and eat for protein.
These and many other cool facts await you in this book.
My only complaint is that the author is forever reminding us that he was a professor at Harvard which got annoying. Yeh, yeh, yeh, it's a prestigious school. But I didn't forget the first time I read it, Mr. Wilson.
Whether you like piss ants or pee ants or carpenter ants or bull ants, if you like ants, you'll find much to enjoy in this book.
August 23, 2020
E. O. Wilson turned 91 a few months ago. He kicked off his tenth decade writing — longhand — this collection of two dozen brief chapters about the ubiquity, weirdness, and wonder of ants, on which he is the leading authority.
He’s not romanticizing them. This isn’t “The Wisdom of Ants.” He warns at the outset that “[t]here is nothing I can even imagine in the lives of ants that we can or should emulate for our own betterment.”
Instead, you learn about ants’ violent mastery of our world in the stories he tells — or, re-tells, really; it definitely feels like this is a pocket collection of tales polished and told over his career. There are many thousands of ant species, occupying ecological niches all over the globe. They lunge, they bite, they sting, they march relentlessly onward, they attack other ant colonies, they enslave other species, and they do it all as a collective. What they don’t do is give up. (Ants have always horrified me, and this book confirms to me that horror is a rational response!)
The pleasures of this book, to me, aren’t really in the (nightmare) ants themselves. Rather, they’re in spending time with Dr. Wilson’s boundless curiosity, in imagining the fieldwork he describes, and in contemplating nature’s complexity and diversity.
He’s not romanticizing them. This isn’t “The Wisdom of Ants.” He warns at the outset that “[t]here is nothing I can even imagine in the lives of ants that we can or should emulate for our own betterment.”
Instead, you learn about ants’ violent mastery of our world in the stories he tells — or, re-tells, really; it definitely feels like this is a pocket collection of tales polished and told over his career. There are many thousands of ant species, occupying ecological niches all over the globe. They lunge, they bite, they sting, they march relentlessly onward, they attack other ant colonies, they enslave other species, and they do it all as a collective. What they don’t do is give up. (Ants have always horrified me, and this book confirms to me that horror is a rational response!)
The pleasures of this book, to me, aren’t really in the (nightmare) ants themselves. Rather, they’re in spending time with Dr. Wilson’s boundless curiosity, in imagining the fieldwork he describes, and in contemplating nature’s complexity and diversity.
October 22, 2020
Nice overview of the subject matter by someone who has spent more than 8 decades actively analyzing insects in general. Ok but some of his asides are weird. They are. I don't believe setting up food stations for ants in your house is a positive attribute.
It would have been 4 stars with some great photos beyond pencil drawings. His publishing history and life story is interesting beyond just the single mindedness plus all the various places he lived. Even in childhood 16 schools in 15 years!
Taught me primarily that the army nasties are not North of the Tennessee River in North America. Good! And that it is usually a minute type of life to be a male ant.
Well, his narrowed interests haven't been a negative in 91 years, IMHO.
It would have been 4 stars with some great photos beyond pencil drawings. His publishing history and life story is interesting beyond just the single mindedness plus all the various places he lived. Even in childhood 16 schools in 15 years!
Taught me primarily that the army nasties are not North of the Tennessee River in North America. Good! And that it is usually a minute type of life to be a male ant.
Well, his narrowed interests haven't been a negative in 91 years, IMHO.
May 12, 2021
This is a charming valedictory work by Edward Wilson, after decades of academic study and teaching. It is a genial book written for the general reader and for the most part requires no scientific background. Its short chapters focus on ants’ amazing, amusing, or peculiar behaviors, but it is not a morality tale; ants embody Otherness, and Wilson reminds the reader that “There is nothing I can even imagine in the lives of ants that we can or should emulate for our own betterment.” (p. 6)
Ant societies embody a ruthless efficiency where the individual members behave more like cells in a body than separate individuals. All productive members are female; the males are little more than sperm delivery modules which do no work in the nest, and live only to impregnate females on their nuptial flights, after which they die. Warfare between nests is a remorseless slaughter, and in a sign of how alien the lives of ants are, Wilson points out that in the inexorable logic of the nest, older females, who are less productive than younger ones, are the primary soldiers because their deaths have the least impact on the nest; in other words, “where humans send their young adults into battle, ants send their old ladies.” (p. 8)
He is a firm and eloquent defender of evolution, and he makes the interesting point that in ants it works on both individuals and colonies.
Ants evolved from wasps, and there is a discussion of the search for the most primitive ant species in the world. There are a number of rare species which possess attributes of great interest to entomologists, but rarity also equals vulnerability. The location of one such species has now been lost to urban sprawl, and another is in the path of an invasive ant species whose assault will wipe it out. Each species matters, in ants and all other living creatures. Even though Wilson believes that the total weight of ants equals the total weight of all humans, though each individual ant is only about one millionth of a single human, the total number of species matters more than the total number of individuals.
Some ants are shy and reclusive, some pugnacious and quick to go on the attack. Once, in Mississippi, I was fishing around in the dirt behind my air conditioner to find my spare keys after I locked myself out of the house. I found them right away, but on withdrawing my hand it was covered with fire ants. I quickly washed them off at the faucet, but the hand was soon covered with dozens of whitish pimples where they had bit me. Calamine lotion helped with the pain but the hand swelled up alarmingly and I had to go see a doctor.
Where I live now is under assault by the invasive Argentine ants, which form supercolonies with multiple queens. They are eradicating beneficial native species, and friends of mine who have had them in their house say they require prompt professional exterminator services or they will overrun the place. In some part of South American leafcutter ants are serious agricultural pests, and can denude an acre of cropland in a couple of days.
This book is interesting to read. My only complaint is that Wilson is so at home with his bugs that he occasionally throws out terms that the average reader will never know, as in “The dominant genus, Strumigenys, collected and brought to the artificial nest a wide variety of small, wingless, soft-bodied arthropods, including collembolans.” (p. 106) Calling it a soft-bodied arthropod does not really clear up what a collembolan is.
The book is only about 130 pages long, and the chapters are only a couple of pages each. Wilson also discusses his childhood and early fascination with insects, and how he was encouraged to become an expert on ants. He is also much more than just a bug guy, and has written some works of great scientific and social impact, such as Sociobiology and Consilience. He is a fine writer with a talent for explanations, and this little book is fun and interesting, well worth reading.
Ant societies embody a ruthless efficiency where the individual members behave more like cells in a body than separate individuals. All productive members are female; the males are little more than sperm delivery modules which do no work in the nest, and live only to impregnate females on their nuptial flights, after which they die. Warfare between nests is a remorseless slaughter, and in a sign of how alien the lives of ants are, Wilson points out that in the inexorable logic of the nest, older females, who are less productive than younger ones, are the primary soldiers because their deaths have the least impact on the nest; in other words, “where humans send their young adults into battle, ants send their old ladies.” (p. 8)
He is a firm and eloquent defender of evolution, and he makes the interesting point that in ants it works on both individuals and colonies.
Evolution then proceeds by natural selection, not just among individual members that make up colonies but among the colonies themselves. The process remains consistent with the fundamental rule of evolution by natural selection: the unit of evolution is the gene, and the target of natural selection is the trait prescribed by the gene. That is all that matters in fundamental Darwinian biology, likely to be a law throughout the universe. (p. 51)
Ants evolved from wasps, and there is a discussion of the search for the most primitive ant species in the world. There are a number of rare species which possess attributes of great interest to entomologists, but rarity also equals vulnerability. The location of one such species has now been lost to urban sprawl, and another is in the path of an invasive ant species whose assault will wipe it out. Each species matters, in ants and all other living creatures. Even though Wilson believes that the total weight of ants equals the total weight of all humans, though each individual ant is only about one millionth of a single human, the total number of species matters more than the total number of individuals.
Some ants are shy and reclusive, some pugnacious and quick to go on the attack. Once, in Mississippi, I was fishing around in the dirt behind my air conditioner to find my spare keys after I locked myself out of the house. I found them right away, but on withdrawing my hand it was covered with fire ants. I quickly washed them off at the faucet, but the hand was soon covered with dozens of whitish pimples where they had bit me. Calamine lotion helped with the pain but the hand swelled up alarmingly and I had to go see a doctor.
Where I live now is under assault by the invasive Argentine ants, which form supercolonies with multiple queens. They are eradicating beneficial native species, and friends of mine who have had them in their house say they require prompt professional exterminator services or they will overrun the place. In some part of South American leafcutter ants are serious agricultural pests, and can denude an acre of cropland in a couple of days.
This book is interesting to read. My only complaint is that Wilson is so at home with his bugs that he occasionally throws out terms that the average reader will never know, as in “The dominant genus, Strumigenys, collected and brought to the artificial nest a wide variety of small, wingless, soft-bodied arthropods, including collembolans.” (p. 106) Calling it a soft-bodied arthropod does not really clear up what a collembolan is.
The book is only about 130 pages long, and the chapters are only a couple of pages each. Wilson also discusses his childhood and early fascination with insects, and how he was encouraged to become an expert on ants. He is also much more than just a bug guy, and has written some works of great scientific and social impact, such as Sociobiology and Consilience. He is a fine writer with a talent for explanations, and this little book is fun and interesting, well worth reading.
March 6, 2021
And now for something completely different! I have a grandson who is serious when he states that one of his choices for a future career is to be a myrmecologist. And what, dear reader is a myrmecologist? An ant expert. . . .grandson's hero is the author of this book, Edward O. Wilson.
We listened to this book together, mostly. He had some time off from school and was my partner and during that time we listened to this great hero of his, Edward O. Wilson and heard all about ants - did you know they are all ladies except for a very few who chase after airborne queens. Did you know the warriors are all the old ladies? They are the expendables in the nest, but they get to go out in glory. As an old lady, I've had fun recasting me in my life as a warrior.
If you are ready for something completely different, this book is it. Language is accessible even for those who aren't sciency, and the way it is written keeps even those not interested in ants engaged. Primarily because there is a global vision - the author takes you all over the world, memories throughout his life starting when he is the very littlest tot starting to notice creatures smaller than him.
Impossible! My first trip to the hospital in this life was shortly after I started to walk. I toddled out to the sticker-filled backyard and punched my foot on one of those nasty puncture vines. I plopped down on the ground and started screaming. Turns out I had just planted my butt on a red ant hill. My last memory (and I do remember it!) is of lots and lots of big red ants climbing up my arms and legs. Mother hovered ever after with EpiPens, and ants were carefully avoided. It is remarkable that I'd be a fangirl of an insect guy, but here I am, waving the flag for myrmecologists throughout the land.
Impossible things are happening everyday.
We listened to this book together, mostly. He had some time off from school and was my partner and during that time we listened to this great hero of his, Edward O. Wilson and heard all about ants - did you know they are all ladies except for a very few who chase after airborne queens. Did you know the warriors are all the old ladies? They are the expendables in the nest, but they get to go out in glory. As an old lady, I've had fun recasting me in my life as a warrior.
If you are ready for something completely different, this book is it. Language is accessible even for those who aren't sciency, and the way it is written keeps even those not interested in ants engaged. Primarily because there is a global vision - the author takes you all over the world, memories throughout his life starting when he is the very littlest tot starting to notice creatures smaller than him.
Impossible! My first trip to the hospital in this life was shortly after I started to walk. I toddled out to the sticker-filled backyard and punched my foot on one of those nasty puncture vines. I plopped down on the ground and started screaming. Turns out I had just planted my butt on a red ant hill. My last memory (and I do remember it!) is of lots and lots of big red ants climbing up my arms and legs. Mother hovered ever after with EpiPens, and ants were carefully avoided. It is remarkable that I'd be a fangirl of an insect guy, but here I am, waving the flag for myrmecologists throughout the land.
Impossible things are happening everyday.
April 25, 2021
Oddly enough, I wasn't aware of ants as stinging insects. I thought they just bit. This explains why, when brushing up against an ant covered hollyhock plant by the back gate, and getting covered with angry ants, it felt like I was getting stung. At the time I thought gee, they sure are agressive biters. And maybe they were - not all ants sting, and I didn't spend a lot of time checking them out.
Initially I was going to downgrade this book because it was a series of not particularly connected anecdotes - but then I remembered the title, and it made perfect sense.
By the way, I read a hard copy. Not the kindle edition. When will I learn to look at the details before I post?
Great information on ants. As another reviewer mentioned, ant colonies assign tasks based on age. All workers are female. The youngest look after the larvae. The "middle aged" do the foraging. If the colony has to wage war on a neighbouring colony, they send the oldest, unlike humans who sacrifice our youngest and strongest. Yep - ants send the old ladies. I mentioned this to my daughter and she said, "Makes sense - they can be pretty crusty."
So I was planning to spend the summer at our summer retreat looking at spiders, and now I'm fascinated by ants. Luckily, we have lots of both lol.
Good book. Nice to have 200 pages of wide spacing after reading 900 pages of fine print on American history. Still took me a few days.
Initially I was going to downgrade this book because it was a series of not particularly connected anecdotes - but then I remembered the title, and it made perfect sense.
By the way, I read a hard copy. Not the kindle edition. When will I learn to look at the details before I post?
Great information on ants. As another reviewer mentioned, ant colonies assign tasks based on age. All workers are female. The youngest look after the larvae. The "middle aged" do the foraging. If the colony has to wage war on a neighbouring colony, they send the oldest, unlike humans who sacrifice our youngest and strongest. Yep - ants send the old ladies. I mentioned this to my daughter and she said, "Makes sense - they can be pretty crusty."
So I was planning to spend the summer at our summer retreat looking at spiders, and now I'm fascinated by ants. Luckily, we have lots of both lol.
Good book. Nice to have 200 pages of wide spacing after reading 900 pages of fine print on American history. Still took me a few days.
January 25, 2021
Excellent! EO Wilson demonstrates why he is the greatest entomologist who ever lived. A highly readable and engaging book on his career as a myrmecologist. His passion for ants is unparalleled and should serve as an influence to all future biologists. He eloquently writes about his time spent in the field studying ants and their physiology, their behavior and some of their painful stings. In this books, Professor Wilson clearly elucidates how he set up many experiments and how they led to new knowledge of ants. Like his previous books, EO Wilson continues to be one of the best popularizers of science and of course, the most important biologist since Darwin. Whether you are a biologist or simply a person with an interest in insects, please, read this book.
August 2, 2021
I was expecting and hoping for a general A to Z about ants with a few offbeat tidbits thrown in for good measure. The book is mostly tidbits and that was disappointing to me. As I read the book I imagined how much more I would have enjoyed the perspective of a curious outsider, someone like John McPhee who has the ability to capture the wonder of the quotidian and elevate it in quirky and informative ways.
Dr. Wilson may be the world's foremost authority on the subject of ants so you certainly can't go wrong with what he has to say. I just wish he had been a resource rather than the author.
The 3 star rating simply represents my enjoyment of the book (it was good) rather than the quality of the information.
Dr. Wilson may be the world's foremost authority on the subject of ants so you certainly can't go wrong with what he has to say. I just wish he had been a resource rather than the author.
The 3 star rating simply represents my enjoyment of the book (it was good) rather than the quality of the information.
October 15, 2020
a very delightful read on collection habits of E.O Wilson, as well as fascinating behaviors and anatomy of different species of ants around the world. This is carefully written with care and wit. This is a very good read on its own, or could be a informative companion read to any of Dr. Wilson's heavier books
September 17, 2020
This book came to me at just the right time. Reaching peak frustration with so many things (Covid-19, politics, divisiveness and lack of civility in America), taking a break to read about ants was... a true respite.
In addition to the number of amazing facts and anecdotes woven through this tale like, “...where humans send their young adults into battle, ants send their old ladies,” there is some sort of wisdom found in these pages. While the author is quick to point out that he has no interest in suggesting humans should emulate the lives of ants, “for our own moral betterment,” there is something compelling about these tiny social creatures.
The author suggests all living ants today would weigh about the same as all living humans, though there are about one million times more ants than humans alive right now. Similarly, this book had a way of making me feel both big and small. That my actions are of large consequence, but at the same time, not all that significant.
After all, one ant queen that may live, say, ten years, could birth up to 200 million worker ants (half the size of the US human population). That makes my life (and my frustrations) seem trivial. And that feels good right now.
I think Edward Wilson is an incredible writer. His larger wisdom about science and the natural world gives useful context to his “tales from the ant world.”
In addition to the number of amazing facts and anecdotes woven through this tale like, “...where humans send their young adults into battle, ants send their old ladies,” there is some sort of wisdom found in these pages. While the author is quick to point out that he has no interest in suggesting humans should emulate the lives of ants, “for our own moral betterment,” there is something compelling about these tiny social creatures.
The author suggests all living ants today would weigh about the same as all living humans, though there are about one million times more ants than humans alive right now. Similarly, this book had a way of making me feel both big and small. That my actions are of large consequence, but at the same time, not all that significant.
After all, one ant queen that may live, say, ten years, could birth up to 200 million worker ants (half the size of the US human population). That makes my life (and my frustrations) seem trivial. And that feels good right now.
I think Edward Wilson is an incredible writer. His larger wisdom about science and the natural world gives useful context to his “tales from the ant world.”
January 25, 2021
The life testimony of the most important biologist since Darwin.
September 14, 2020
Edward O. Wilson is not for everyone. His opinions are always controversial which is somewhat surprising on the face of it since his research and his opinions evolve from his study of ants. Ants are the only other creature on earth besides man that wages war, not for protection but on offense for deliberate gain. This is a tiny book with so much packed in.
June 25, 2022
I won this book in a goodreads drawing.
Wilson is a renowned expert on ants. Here he writes about his life's experiences with the insect, telling us about many species and unusual behavior among them.
Very interesting, even if you don't like ants.
Wilson is a renowned expert on ants. Here he writes about his life's experiences with the insect, telling us about many species and unusual behavior among them.
Very interesting, even if you don't like ants.
October 2, 2020
WOW! A fantastic read for anyone with naturalist interests. A great introduction to myrmecology, the study of the more than 15,000 species known, filling almost every single biome and niche on the planet.
November 10, 2020
I won this book on Goodreads first reads. Thank you!
This was a fascinating book. I learned a lot about Ants from reading this book. You can feel and sense his love/passion for ants among his words.
This was a fascinating book. I learned a lot about Ants from reading this book. You can feel and sense his love/passion for ants among his words.
September 6, 2020
“These most amazing of all ants (the Atta and the Acromyrmex) are gardeners designed evolution to cultivate symbiotic fungi that are able to flourish only in the case of their attine hosts"
September 7, 2020
An excellent, fascinating and educational read.
September 10, 2020
Fascinating. Who would have thought of this as an area of research. Not for everyone but I was immersed.
September 11, 2020
Excellent!
November 11, 2020
This was a wonderful read on the diversity of ants. The natural world is such as amazing thing.
March 13, 2021
This may be the fastest i have finished a book - 200+ pages in an hour. It provides a folksy encounter with various ants: army, fire, fast ones, ones, ferocious ones, timid ones.... I was looking for more information on pheromones (communication by ants) which was touched on in chapter eleven, but not as much as covered in another book by Wilson (read prior to my keeping track on GoodReads).
There were interesting tidbits about there being 15,000 species yielding ten thousand trillion ants making up one quarter of the world's biomass (along with termites {white ants}). An interesting facet of leaf cutter ants is smaller ants ride the leaf portion being carried by the bigger ant to fend off parasitic flies.
There were interesting tidbits about there being 15,000 species yielding ten thousand trillion ants making up one quarter of the world's biomass (along with termites {white ants}). An interesting facet of leaf cutter ants is smaller ants ride the leaf portion being carried by the bigger ant to fend off parasitic flies.
January 28, 2021
This book can be enjoyed by anyone and although it deals with the author's experiences and discoveries in a very specific field of study, it is a very fun and enjoyable. In the book the author, probably the most brilliant and learned biologist since Darwin and winner of more Pulitzer prizes than any writer, recounts his experiences as a myrmecologist. The book is very well written and is very enjoyable, but in addition to that, I think it is a great literary jewel because it is the life testimony of a great biologist whose end is near due to his advanced age. We are privileged to be able to read it.
January 30, 2021
Never has been in history a scientist as awarded as E. O. Wilson for both his scientific career and his literary career. In this new book, Wilson tells us about his funniest exploits and adventures as a miermecologist. A book that deals with such small and seemingly uninteresting creatures can become a cult work. This is the proof.
January 29, 2021
Whenever the most important biologist in the world publishes a new book, it is a mandatory appointment with the bookstore. Once again, Ed. Wilson demonstrates why he deserves this title.
January 28, 2021
Read it, it's very inspiring. You have the opportunity to learn from the most important biologist in the world.
September 21, 2020
I study behavior, and ant behavior is as interesting to me as any other. They have extraordinarily complex social structures, fight wars, and farm. I especially enjoyed learning more about the leaf cutter ants I was able to observe in Costa Rica last summer. The entire book served as a reminder that humans think far too highly of themselves. I don’t know that I would recommend this one to everyone, but it’s a short and worthwhile read for anyone with an interest in natural history.
October 30, 2020
I could not put this book down. Great stories about various ant species and lovely illustrations. Looking forward to spring to go watch the ants in our yard.
November 5, 2020
Concise and brilliant writing. The world is a wonder.
September 2, 2023
Ants are my Life totem,…unhappily, for life, of all the Flora & Fauna species. Took me a lifetime to accept this, gracefully, whilst I look at others and their natural totems being the elephant, Hawk, bison, and more. Mine is the…ant. This book changed all that. I am ok with the totem now. They are cool. They are welcome in our small home now. I wish I had met E.O. Wilson, oh well…best Naturalist ever! Ants are awesome! Except for the fire ants, those hurt like the dickens!
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