Adventures Among Ants by Mark W. Moffett

Be a lung cell, be a kidney cell, be a brain cell even. We are superorganisms that respond, as ants do, to chemicals and our cells are programmed to do certain things. But then the cells in our bodies are like that. Some ants have evolved from hunter-gatherers into farmers, domesticating other insects and growing crops for food.Ants with the largest societies often deploy complicated military tactics.Ants are world-class road builders, handling traffic problems on thoroughfares that dwarf our highway systems in their complexity.

Adventures among Ants introduces some of the world’s most awe-inspiring species and offers a startling new perspective on the limits of our own perception. We find them creating marketplaces and assembly lines and dealing with issues we think of as uniquely human-including hygiene, recycling, and warfare. Moffett’s spectacular close-up photographs shrink us down to size, so that we can observe ants in familiar roles warriors, builders, big-game hunters, and slave owners. In tales from Nigeria, Indonesia, the Amazon, Australia, California, and elsewhere, Moffett recounts his entomological exploits and provides fascinating details on how ants live and how they dominate their ecosystems through strikingly human behaviors, yet at a different scale and a faster tempo. Moffett, “the Indiana Jones of entomology,” takes us around the globe on a strange and colorful journey in search of the hidden world of ants. Intrepid international explorer, biologist, and photographer Mark W.

Adventures Among Ants by Mark W. Moffett