TALES FROM THE ANT WORLD

Myrmecologist Edward Wilson, who has won two Pulitzer prizes for his scientific writing, has created an absorbing account of his lifelong interest in ants, partly in the hope of encouraging aspiring scientists to specialise in the insect world, where most of the 15,000 ant species discovered so far still await further study. Ants organise themselves into societies of a complexity that rivals that of humans, though the details are very different, for instance all the ants that are active in the social life of colonies are females. Adult male ants do no work and their only function is insemination. Ants are the most warlike of animals and many eat their dead and injured in battle. When forming an army they start with the oldest, sending their old ladies into the front line and continuing down the age hierarchy. The author started studying insects as a boy when he was given a microscope for Christmas, and when a horde of ants marched three or four abreast into his backyard he decided ants were to be his life's work. A different mode of hunting is the swarm-raiding tactic of the species Eciton burchelli, in which tightly packed ants fan out. When they encounter a crevice, the leaders link jaws and legs to form a bridge. Dolichoderus imitator, by comparison, is an unaggressive, timid ant which the author encountered in the Amazon, and they ran away so quickly that it was difficult to get a specimen. Social insects communicate by taste and smell, or in scientific terms by pheromones, chemical substances passed back and forth by individuals. Ants are the virtuosos of chemical communication, and you can test this by putting a drop of sugar near a nest and then watching the result. Together with other entomologists the author has developed a system which allows him to interpret the meaning of some of these pheromones. 230pp, black and white illustrations.