Tag: The Leafcutter Ants

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The Leafcutter Ants Book

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?

By the way, Alex Wild found a cool video about leafcutter ants at his blog.

Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Original edition (November 15, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0393338681
ISBN-13: 978-0393338683

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New Ant Books Coming Out Fall 2010

Have you heard about the new ant books coming out this fall? Kingdom-of-ants

Kingdom of Ants: JosĂ© Celestino Mutis and the Dawn of Natural History by Edward O. Wilson and JosĂ© M. GĂłmez Durán is about JosĂ© 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

If you can read Spanish, check JosĂ© M. GĂłmez Durán’s blog.

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. The-Leafcutter-Ants

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.