The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct, Bert Hölldobler

The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct

Bert Hölldobler

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.

Book Details

  • Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
  • Publish Date: Nov 15th, 2010
  • Pages: 192
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.30in - 6.30in - 0.49in - 0.78lb
  • EAN: 9780393338683
  • Categories: Animals - Insects & Spiders

More books to explore

Book Cover for: The Bees in Your Backyard: A Guide to North America's Bees, Joseph S. Wilson
Book Cover for: Honeybee Democracy, Thomas D. Seeley
Book Cover for: For Love of Insects, Thomas Eisner
Book Cover for: Tales from the Ant World, Edward O. Wilson
Book Cover for: The Ants, Bert Hölldobler
Book Cover for: Omfg, Bees!: Bees Are So Amazing and You're about to Find Out Why, Matt Kracht
Book Cover for: The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild, Thomas D. Seeley
Book Cover for: Underbug: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology, Lisa Margonelli
Book Cover for: Super Fly: The Unexpected Lives of the World's Most Successful Insects, Jonathan Balcombe
Book Cover for: Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps, Seirian Sumner
Book Cover for: Insectpedia: A Brief Compendium of Insect Lore, Eric R. Eaton
Book Cover for: Diary of a Citizen Scientist: Chasing Tiger Beetles and Other New Ways of Engaging the World, Sharman Apt Russell
Book Cover for: The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator, Timothy C. Winegard
Book Cover for: Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live, Rob Dunn
Book Cover for: A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings: A Year of Keeping Bees, Helen Jukes

About the Author

Hölldobler, Bert: - 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.
Wilson, Edward O.: - 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.

More books by Bert Hölldobler

Book Cover for: The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies, Bert Hölldobler
Book Cover for: The Guests of Ants: How Myrmecophiles Interact with Their Hosts, Bert Hölldobler
Book Cover for: Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration, Bert Hölldobler
Book Cover for: The Ants, Bert Hölldobler