My copy of The Leafcutter Ants by Bert Hölldobler and E.O. Wilson came today.
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I had to laugh. The blurb on the back starts out: “The Leafcutter Ants is the most detailed and authoritative description of any ant species ever produced.” This is a skimpy book. At 160 pages, it is about the size of your standard paperback. Comparing it to Walter Tschinkel’s hefty 723 page tome on the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, I figure it must be the authoritative part they are referring to… 🙂
The authors state that the book was inspired by the chapter on leafcutter ants from their book The Superorganism. This book definitely includes some of the same photographs and figures as the chapter, but they have added more spectacular photographs, including a few by Alex Wild at Myrmecos.
I can’t wait to delve into it further to see what’s new.
Are you reading The Leafcutter Ants yet? What do you think?
Have you heard about the new ant books coming out this fall?
Kingdom of Ants: José Celestino Mutis and the Dawn of Natural History by Edward O. Wilson and José M. Gómez Durán is about José Celestino Mutis’ exploration of northern South America in the 1760’s. Although he investigated and explored in a number of scientific fields, this book involves his study of, you guessed it, ants! It is due to be released October 21, 2010.
Hardcover: 120 pages
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; 1 edition
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0801897858
ISBN-13: 978-0801897856
Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct is the newest offering by Bert Hoelldobler and Edward O. Wilson. It is going to be a paperback and due to be released November 15, 2010.
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Original edition
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393338681
ISBN-13: 978-0393338683
Amazon seems to be offering a good pre-release price on the leafcutter ant one.
In another domain I reviewed a children’s book that I realized people might be interested in here. It a great beginning reader called Ants by Melissa Stewart.
Unlike some children’s books about ants, all the information appears current and accurate. In the margins are extremely silly riddles and puns, sure to catch the interest of young children. Most of the different kinds of ants are identified, but the names aren’t central to the text. If the child is curious about the ants in the photograph, he or she can find out what kind of ant it is.
Ants is part of the National Geographic Readers series. That means the lucky author has access to the fantastic photographs available in the National Geographic archives. Right away I recognized a couple of photographs by ant specialist and National Geographic photographer, Dr. Mark Moffett. What a visual treat!
If you know a child interested in nature and/or science, you might want to consider picking up this book.
Adventures Among Ants: A Global Safari with a Cast of Trillions is the newest book by photographer/scientist/adventurer Mark Moffett from the University of California Press.
When I heard that consummate storyteller Mark Moffett was working on a book about ants, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would it be a coffee table book full of his wonderful macro photographs, like one of his famous National Geographic articles simply expanded? Or would it be a hardcore scientific treatise going back to his Harvard roots?
Turns out it is a little of both, with a bit of “extreme entomology” thrown in. Adventures Among Ants: A Global Safari with a Cast of Trillions is truly a unique science book that is complex and multilayered, with something for almost everyone who picks it up.
Myrmecologists (ant specialists) will love his comprehensive discussion of ant species most of us only dream about seeing, from the relatively unknown marauder ants to the tiny Camponotus schmitzi swimming in pitcher plants to the supercolonies of Argentine ants in California. Nature lovers will appreciate the beautiful photographs and descriptions of habitats in many continents. Those interested in anthropology may want to consider Moffett’s many comparisons of ant and human societies. And armchair travelers will definitely get a vicarious thrill from Moffett’s sometimes extreme adventures, culminating in a wedding ceremony that is not for the faint of heart.
Although chock full of scientific detail, the author does throw out a few bones for the layperson reading the book. For example, I was a bit surprised to see on page 7 that he writes that ants have “three primary body sections: head, thorax, and abdomen…” If you follow the footnote to the sentence to the notes section in the back, he then corrects the statement by indicating that the parts are modified in ants, and are called trunk, petiole and gaster, the terms more commonly used by myrmecologists.
Alternating often humorous anecdotes with fascinating natural history and science, this book has a friendly, personal feel. His chapter on marauder ants is a particularly personalized account of his graduate studies. I couldn’t believe how he became a photographer for National Geographic almost by accident when as a literally starving graduate student he asked them to pay for the development of some of his photos. Mary Smith saw the results and immediately asked for more, leading to a successful long term relationship with the magazine.
As an amateur photographer, I was hoping for a bit more information about how Moffett takes those superb macro photographs of ants. Beyond admitting that he learned his techniques by studying a book on how to photograph supermodels and that he uses flashes, he remains remarkably coy about how he does it. Maybe it has more to do with his personal relationship with the ants rather than any equipment he uses. In any case, the results are even more remarkable when you take into account how very difficult ants are to capture on film.
Mark Moffett says, “It’s all about telling stories.” Adventures Among Ants is an amazing collection of stories that you won’t want to miss. Pick up a copy today!
More information:
For more reviews, check Amazon. (I have never seen so many 5 Star reviews of a book at Amazon, including one by ant scientist, Walter Tschinkel.)
Ants by Melissa Stewart.
