The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct

by Bert Hölldobler, Edward O. Wilson

Overview

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of The Ants comes this dynamic and visually spectacular portrait of Earth's ultimate superorganism.

The Leafcutter Ants 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 cropland—from Louisiana to Patagonia. Inspired by a section of the authors' acclaimed The Superorganism, this brilliantly illustrated work provides the ultimate explanation of what a social order with a half-billion years of animal evolution has achieved.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393338683
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	11/15/2010
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	525,572
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Bert Hölldobler is Foundation Professor at Arizona State University and the recipient of numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize. He lives in Arizona and Germany.

Edward O. Wilson (1929-2021) was the author of more than thirty books, including Anthill, Letters to a Young Scientist, and The Conquest of Nature. The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, Wilson was a professor emeritus at Harvard University and lived with his wife in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations ix

Prologue 1

Chapter 1 The Ultimate Superorganisms 5

Chapter 2 The Attine Breakthrough 11

Chapter 3 The Ascent of the Leafcutters 31

Chapter 4 Life Cycle of the Leafcutter Ants 33

Chapter 5 The Atta Caste System 51

Chapter 6 Harvesting Vegetation 59

Chapter 7 Communication in Atta 77

Chapter 8 The Ant-Fungus Mutualism 89

Chapter 9 Hygiene in the Symbiosis 95

Chapter 10 Waste Management 107

Chapter 11 Agropredators and Agroparasites 111

Chapter 12 Lcafcutcer Nests 115

Chapter 13 Trails and Trunk Routes 123

Acknowledgments 129

Glossary 131

References 139

Index 155