The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct

Bert Hölldobler, Edward O. Wilson


Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
4.50 · 8 ratings · 192 pages · Published: 13 Nov 2010

The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct by Bert Hölldobler, Edward O. Wilson
emThe Leafcutter Ants/em is the most detailed and authoritative description of any ant species ever produced. With a text suitable for both a lay and a scientific audience, the book provides an unforgettable tour of Earth's most evolved animal societies. Each colony of leafcutters contains as many as five million workers, all the daughters of a single queen that can live over a decade. A gigantic nest can stretch thirty feet across, rise five feet or more above the ground, and consist of hundreds of chambers that reach twenty-five feet below the ground surface. Indeed, the leafcutters have parlayed their instinctive civilization into a virtual domination of forest, grassland, and croplandmdash;from Louisiana to Patagonia. Inspired by a section of the authors' acclaimed emThe Superorganism/em, this brilliantly illustrated work provides the ultimate explanation of what a social order with a half-billion years of animal evolution has achieved.

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