This landmark work, the distillation of a lifetime of research by the world’s leading myrmecologists, is a thoroughgoing survey of one of the largest and most diverse groups of animals on the planet. Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson review in exhaustive detail virtually all topics in the anatomy, physiology, social organization, ecology, and natural history of the ants. In large format, with almost a thousand line drawings, photographs, and paintings, it is one of the most visually rich and all-encompassing views of any group of organisms on earth. It will be welcomed both as an introduction to the subject and as an encyclopedia reference for researchers in entomology, ecology, and sociobiology.
Bert Hölldobler is now Foundation Professor of Biology at Arizona State University; formerly Chair of Behavioral Physiology and Sociology at the Theodor Boveri Institute, University of Würzburg. He is also the recipient of the U.S. Senior Scientist Prize of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German government. Until 1990, he was the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard University.
Edward O. Wilson is Pellegrino University Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard University. In addition to two Pulitzer Prizes (one of which he shares with Bert Hölldobler), Wilson has won many scientific awards, including the National Medal of Science and the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Table of Contents
The Importance of Ants.- Classification and Origins.- The Colony Life Cycle.- Altruism and the Origin of the Worker Caste.- Colony Odor and Kin Recognition.- Queen Numbers and Domination.- Communication.- Caste and Division of Labor.- Social Homeostasis and Flexibility.- Foraging Strategies, Territory, and Population Regulation.- The Organization of Species Communities.- Symbioses among Ant Species.- Symbioses with Other Arthropods.- Symbioses between Ants and Plants.- The Specialized Predators.- The Army Ants.- The Fungus Growers.- The Harvesting Ants.- Weaver Ants.- Collecting, Culturing, Observing.
