The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct

by Bert Hölldobler, Edward O. Wilson

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. Four-color throughout, 56 photographs

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Biology, Nature, Animals, Natural History, Evolution

192 pages, Paperback

First published November 13, 2010

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.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book years ago. I had bought it for the cover and put it in the shop, but it didn't sell. No one could talk about it to customers. So I took it home and was entranced. Ants live in an alternative world to us but a very closely related one. There is so much similarity between their world and ours and yet the chasm between us is unbridgeable. They aren't mammals, we can't look into each others eyes and understand anything at all about each other. Also see Tales from the Ant World by the same author. The two reviews kind of mesh together, just like the books do.

Think of the parallels. They live in very small colonies, villages, and gigantic urban cities as big as any city people have built. They build and maintain roads and bridges. They have organised traffic, albeit it is ants sometimes 16 of them carrying cargo rather than anything mechanised, still on a narrow road, with ants in two directions, organisation is necessary. If a road is blocked, they can communicate that to ants heading that way and the ants will change course. How do they do this?

They have armies, and the armies aren't just fighting ant to ant, they have tactics. They don't always fight (although it does seem like they would like to) sometimes they 'negotiate' and build alliances. By some mechanism, maybe an exchange of scent, other ants know these ones are ok, friendly, but the colony next door needs to be destroyed. They also take slaves, in fact go on slave-raiding expeditions, to bring home those who will do the work for them. Without the reward of passing on their genes. All ants are sisters, the daughters of the queen, male ants are short-lived sperm donors and only count very briefly.

In their homes, ants have nurseries and nannies, they have farms of several different fungi and livestock. These require a lot of skill. They want the right fungi to grow, that means the equivalent of weeding, watering, and fertilizing. Livestock from whom they get honeydew, need moving around to better pastures, they need protecting from marauders and guarding from escape.

They live in our houses and eat our food and no matter how we try and eradicate them, they always come back. They do not understand us, but they know how to exploit us, we don't represent a natural habitat, but ants are endlessly adaptable. They aren't afraid of us.

But what are they and how do they communicate fine details which they obviously do? You only have to watch them in the kitchen how - one ant 'tells' another something and then scurries off home or to where there are food scraps. They have been described as a superorganism, which I think is something we don't understand. As yet, no matter what books I've read, it doesn't seem anyone really understands consciousness or intelligence or where either of these things lie except we know they do in the brain.

And so it is with a superorganism. The queen controls everything by pheromones. But the queen doesn't move so how does she know what is going on outside, how does she know that her workers have just found a juicy beetle and killed it and now must organise transport to bring it back home? How does she know to tell the one in the rear to pick up an insect's tail that is dangling as they carry it home? How does that ant actually decide by herself that she should pick up the tail without reference to any other ant? We don't know. They make these decisions themselves. They must be conscious even if not conscious of self (and they might be) and they must have considerable brain power in their tiny heads to sort all this out. Blind instinct can't account for the complexity of the lives of ants.

In one way we too are superorganisms. Our brains are the queen and control everything. But our organs have a certain amount of autonomy, one cell will chemically or electrically tell another what to do, and may carry on after the brain is dead. Our immune system organises itself to fight off germs and viruses and to remember who they were and have defences ready or to know that this is a new cut, and certain cells need to rush to close it against the 'enemy' invading.

These are reactions yes, and do not require conscious thought. And it does not co-relate at all with ants, but it shows that superorganisms can have two forms of direction, the brain and each cell. And maybe ants are 'each cell'?

I have no idea what review I wrote first time round. I'm just glad I found this book again and can remember it's impact on me.

[Mario the lone bookwolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hölldobler's work is amazing, a prime example of what fascinating insights a life dedicated to the love of science can bring and be used to.

Just like termites, those ants have gone an important step even more sophisticated animals such as dolphins, birds, chimps and even some human societies missed. They have agriculture and are independent of hunting and the restrictions the amount of fresh, bloody meat has on the possible population size.

If there would be more research on how to develop symbiotic value chains and sustainable agriculture with the leafcutter ants, the options, both for the ants and humans, would be immense. Understanding those animals brings us closer to optimizing agricultural processes, bioreactors and faster food production and change to endless production of nearly everything. Imagine the combination of the efficiency of Korean and Japanese production lines and mega colonies of ants.

Regarding the love story of ants, plants and mushrooms, many questions are still unanswered, especially how they first met, how their relationship got more and more perfect, how they communicate with each other and what kind of kids in the form of newer, even more effective symbioses may result from the cooperation.

Be it real or robotic ants, both could do really everything, no matter if as kind of household robots and biological helpers in each house or building everything, probably swarming out as soon as a new planet is reached and helping in preparing terraforming.

Modifying and changing gravity, atmospheric pressure, biophysics, biochemistry, etc to enable them to grow to all sizes and forms will be a key element too. Insects may then just be able to live in certain, low gravity areas with special air conditions and die in all other areas, but in those zones, they will be king.

A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_H%...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusocia...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leafcut...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline...

[Teck Wu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many things to learn about this eusocial species.
Also, Handmaid’s tale in reverse: “males live only to inseminate the reproductive females and then die”!

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The emerging picture thus indicates that mutualism should be viewed as a highly integrated superorganism that is more than the sum of its parts.

This is a fascinating book on appetites and cooperation. It concerns the leaf cutting ants which devote themselves to the construction of vast colonies which then require considerable biomass to maintain certain rearing and food production processes, hence all those leaves which need cutting.

The book abounds with fascinating photographs and charts highlighting this coordination. I was enthralled. The ants use a chemical means of communication which appears so poetic and yet elemental.

[Taveri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not too much new here for me, having previously read a number of books by E O Wilson. Great photos! I particularily liked the time-calibrated phylogeny of fungus growing ants on pages 22-23.

[Anna [Floanne] · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saggio molto accurato sulla vita delle formiche tagliafoglie Atta e Acromyrmex diffuse soprattutto nelle foreste nel Centro e Sudamerica.; il nome deriva dal fatto che la loro principale fonte di alimento sono funghi che coltivano utilizzando frammenti di foglie come loro substrato di crescita. La loro simbiosi con il fungo è una meraviglia della natura! La regina che fonda una nuova colonia porta con sè un frammento di fungo che nutre in una tana prima di deporre le uova. Sarà il sostentamento delle larve alla loro schiusa. Quando gli esemplari della covata cresceranno, sarà loro compito alimentare il fungo, mentre la regina - che si accoppia con molteplici maschi per rafforzare la resistenza della colonia a malattie e attacchi da agenti patogeni - avrà poi solo una funzione riproduttiva. Interessante sapere che all’interno della colonia della stessa specie, le formiche si differenzino per dimensioni in base al compito che devono rivestire: le più piccole ad esempio non escono a procacciare materiale vegetale (compito affidato alle operaie più forti) ma si occupano di nutrire delicatamente il fungo, i cui filamenti potrebbero essere danneggiati da un “peso” eccessivo. Anche la selezione del materiale organico è ben organizzata: le operaie scelgono con cura le piante con le foglie migliori da cui rifornirsi e non è raro che si organizzi una vera e propria staffetta per portare il raccolto al nido, così da permettere un risparmio di energie e un approvvigionamento più rapido. Le foto e i disegni sono molto interessanti, anche se forse più significativi agli occhi di un esperto mirmecologo (ho imparato una parola nuova e mi piace un sacco!) che non di una profana come me! Comunque si legge con la stessa fluidità con cui si guarderebbe un documentario su National Geographic.
Voto: 3.5 stelle

[meadow · Rating 4 out of 5]

great book, pretty accessible, lots of great pictures. does assume a bit much on when it comes to technical biology vocabulary but i didn't feel too bad for not knowing some of the more complex chemicals. if you're at all interested in ants you should read this. cmon it only takes a day. just do it for me.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book about ants has no right being this interesting! It's very short, very well-researched, very thorough, but also absolutely accessible to a layperson with no particular passion for, or background in, ant biology.

It details the fascinating life and civilization of leafcutter ants, which live in North, Central, and South America. You'll learn that, fascinatingly enough, humans did not invent agriculture; insects (termites and attine ants like leafcutter ants) had made the shift from hunter-gatherer existence to agriculture about 50 or 60 million years earlier. They cut leaves and flowers and feed them to a particular strain of fungus, which they then eat.

Their societies are highly complex. In each colony, there is one permanent reproductive individual, the queen. Each year, the queen gives birth to a small number of other winged, reproductive females and males, who, on maturity, take a piece of the colony’s fungus and fly away for their “nuptial flight” - during which the young queens collect semen from 3-8 males (some of which may have come from her birth colony, some of which may be from other colonies). The queen will store and use this semen to produce eggs for the entire lifespan of the colony, which may be 10-15 years or longer.

After providing their semen, the winged male ants die (their lifespan is extremely short). As for the queen, once she has collected the semen she sought, she will drop her wings, then go off to find a good place to dig a nest chamber to start her own colony. She will plant the fungus sample she brought from her birth colony to start her own fungus garden, to be tended by her daughter-workers as they grow up. Once that happens, the queen’s role is to continue laying eggs for the duration of the colony’s life (a small group of her daughter-workers groom and feed her).

The queen’s daughter-workers form the bulk of the colony, numbering in the millions. The workers are sterile females without wings, and consist of numerous sub-castes and jobs. In addition to the queen’s caretakers, another group of workers, “nurse ants,” care for the larvae and pupae in a brood chamber (sort of like a nursery).

The largest worker ants ("super major") are soldiers - they defend the nest and the surrounding territory from attack. Another group of workers maintain the pathways used by the forager ants, keeping the paths clear of vegetation and debris.

The foragers are also larger ants; they venture out and cut the leaves and flowers to bring back to feed to fungus. They drop the leaf pieces on the floor of the colony nest.

A slightly smaller group of ants then cuts those leaves into smaller pieces. An even smaller group crushes those pieces and adds fecal juice to form the leaves into moist pellets (yum) and packs them together to build a mound. Yet another group of ants then clips pieces of fungus from another part of the chamber and propogates it by planting it into the moist plant fertilizer mound. Finally, the smallest type of worker ant patrols the fungal gardens, licking them and plucking out contamination of other fungus species (basically, weeding the garden).

Members of this last, smallest group have a different job as they get older: they ride on top of the leaves carried by the forager ants on the way back to the nest, for two reasons: fending off parasitic ants trying to lay their eggs on the forager ants, and cleaning the leaves of possible contaminants (other species of fungus, or bacteria) before bringing it into the nest.

Lastly, there are garbage collector ants. They collect and dispose of debris from the fungus garden. It's a dangerous job - ants exposed to waste material die at a higher rate, as the debris can be infected with bacteria or parasites - so it is usually performed by older workers, who are designed to die soon anyway.

In addition to their complex system of castes, they have language, too; using a combo of pheromone release, sounds, and vibrations, they can communicate where leaves are to be found and how desirable (juicy) they are, when it's time to load up (allowing the small ants that ride on the leaves to hustle over and jump up), or when they're being attacked or caved in and need their sisters to dig them out/help them fight off their attacker.

They can learn as well - if a plant they feed to the fungus proves harmful, the gardener ants will recognize that it harms the fungus (we aren't sure how they can tell) and communicate it (we aren't sure how this happens either) to the forager ants, who then cease to harvest that particular plant in the future. And they can cooperate in reaction to their environment, too; when they come across a plant stem too thick for one ant to cut through, two ants will start cutting in from opposite sides of the stem.

I found it particularly interesting that the book refers to the argument that ant colonies, rather than groups of organisms, are actually one organism:

“The amazing feats of army ants, weaver ants, or leafcuter ants come not from complex behavior of individual colony members but from the concerted actions of many nestmates working together. By itself, a single at is a vast disappointment…. It is not just analogy and metaphor to speak of a superorganism, and therefore to invite a detailed comparison between the society and the conventional organism…. It behaves as a unit. It possesses distinctive properties of size, behavior, and organization that are transmitted from one generation to the next. The queen is the reproductive organ; the workers are the supporting brain, heart, gut, and other tissues. The exchange of liquid and food among colony members is the equivalent of the circulation of blood and lymph.”

To me, that passage naturally invites implicit comparison to human civilizations as well. The book points out that you'll be unimpressed if you were to focus in on any particular leafcutter ant individual, just digging a hole or cutting a leaf; likewise, though, I think the same would be true if you closely examined the average human, breeding out children, frying burgers at McDonalds, pushing papers in an office. On an individual level, neither a leafcutter ant, nor a human, is anything special; it's only when you view the civilization as a whole, what people as a group can accomplish, that it becomes remarkable. I'd love to read a book making the argument that human civilization, rather than individual humans, is an organism in itself!

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, excellent, excellent book!! It inspired my speech for Forensics this year! The pictures were amazing, especially of the colonies they filled up with concrete and then excavated, and reading about how young leafcutter ant queens start colonies was mind-blowing.

[Oizram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibile, oltre che per i contenuti per uno stile divulgativo alto che raggiunge il perfetto equilibrio tra paper e superquark

[Danyelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

ants are cool.

[Colombino DeCrippols · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bugs life was a lie

[Juju Dessert · Rating 5 out of 5]

obviously.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nerdy and approachably thorough, the level of structural and social development of these ants (millions to a nest!) is astoundingly conveyed in short picture-filled chapters.

[anya · Rating 4 out of 5]

After doing tropical field research on leaf cutter ants in Costa Rica, I realized how incredibly well written this book is. It acts as a literature review of every possible nugget of information we know about these little creatures. A well written and very scientifically accurate book!

[Driftless · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the past few centuries, plenty of thought, ink and celluloid have been devoted to imagining what extraterrestrial civilizations might be like. But when the first human steps out of her spaceship to explore another life-bearing planet, how will she decide when she's truly encountered a new civilization.

The Collins English Dictionary defines civilization thusly:

"a human society that has highly developed material and spiritual resources and a complex cultural, political, and legal organization; an advanced state in social development"

I think it's fair to argue that his definition is rather anthropocentric, given that it restricts civilization to humanity right up front. If I get out my red marker and cross out the underlined and non-essential words, making the definition a bit more inclusive, we have a definition that might work anywhere in the galaxy.

"a society that has highly developed material resources and complex organization; an advanced state in social development"

But if one thinks diminutively, yet broadly, the Earth already plays host to non-human civilizations that might be as alien as anything we might encounter on another planet. In The Leafcutter Ants, celebrated biologists Bert Hölldobler and E.O Wilson explore what may be the pinnacle of terrestrial, non-human civilization.

You can read the rest of my review at The Leafcutter Ants.

[Louisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Farmers in Central America call them zompopos and consider them pests. Unstoppable are they, these leafcutter ants, carrying off little pieces of leaves by the millions, harming crops and ruining harvests.

In this book, Hölldobler and Wilson give us an insider view of the remarkable level of organisation of the leafcutter ants. They show us what happens to these leaf fragments: all bits of plant material are used to cultivate a species of fungus which in turn feeds the ants. That's right; these fungus-growing ants practice agriculture and have been doing so for the past 50 million years. With beautiful photos of the nest mounds, the mating swarms and the fungus gardens, this is a wonderful book for anyone who'd like to take a closer look at the marvellous world of leafcutter ants.

[Dorothy O'Connell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ants are a great study for social organization

Hölldobler and Wilson are the hands-down experts in this field. Their studies of the diversity and adaptability of ant and other insect colonies really challenge ideas of human intelligence as necessary to evolving civilization. Very useful for a student of autopoietic organization in living systems.

[Rachel (Sfogs) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots to learn from this book!
Really enjoyed it!!

[Mark Reece · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book by two eminent scientists, who possess the two gifts needed for popular science writing: the ability to condense research without simplifying it too far, and good writing. The book is an expansion of a chapter from The Superorganism by the same authors, where they introduce the concept of eusociality, which they define as:

1) Cooperative care for immature individuals.
2) Overlap of at least two generations in the same society.
3) The coexistence of reproductive and non-reproductive members.

This book examines the atta genera as an exemplary case of eusociality, given the intricate caste system that pertains within those species of ants. The head width of the leaf cutter workers varies from between 0.7 to 5 millimeters, with the interactions between them described as a production line, consisting of the workers of different sizes carrying out a variety of tasks, including cutting leaves from plants, breaking them into smaller parts, carrying them to the nest, then carrying out the variety of tasks necessary to incorporate them into the colony's fungal garden.

The book has a series of wonderful pictures, many of which were taken by Holldobler, which are not only beautiful, but add a lot to the text. This include pictures of ants themselves, and also excavations of nests (which made me a little sad, given the descriptions of the work that were put into building them).

The skill of the experiments conducted by myrmecologists to discover many different aspects of ant societies are incredible. There are many wonderful details in the book about, amongst other things, the manner in which leaf cutters use their mandibles to cut leaves, the nature of the biochemistry that ants use to communicate, and the incredible synergy between ants and fungus, which enables them, in combination, to lower the level of carbon dioxide in a nest to safe levels.

This is a short book, but a delightful one. It is science as a joyful thing.

[Halcyon · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all: I just fucking love ants, man. I mean, look! It's a nation of tiny insect working together to farm a fungus, care for their brood and do all other kinds of amazing, complex stuff! It's so fucking fascinating and cool! What's not to love?

This book delves deeper in how leafcutter colonies operate, especially the Atta genus. You learn that whenever a queen sets out to found a new nest after the nuptial flights, she actually takes a piece of her birth nest with her! All so she can start to cultivate her own nest! You learn about how workers communicate with each other. You learn about the different kinds of caste you can find in leafcutters, and their role! You will also learn how they keep certain parasites at bay and how complex the relationship the ants have with their fungus really is.

Also really amazing are are the detailed illustrations included on some of the pages. And don't forget the beautifully clear photographs, both contain short descriptions underneath them on what is taking place and what species (and potential caste) you are looking at. I really enjoyed this!

Be prepare to google lots of terms though, something I will do on a reread.

A good recommendation if you want to take a closer look at leafcutter ants. But also fun to read if you like nature and insects! This is one of those books that I will happily reread in a few years time!

[Richard Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed The Ants and Superorganism, both of which I read years ago. I remember them both as being beautifully designed, with great ant photos and written in an accessible style that didn't talk down to me. This book is more of the same, focused on the fascinating leafcutter ants of Central and South America, primarily the Atta variety. There are many ways in which these ants are interesting, starting with the way that they practice agriculture with a specialized mutualist fungus that they have been cultivating for millions of years. They grow into gigantic colonies of millions of individuals. The queens have to pump out approximately 20 eggs a minute. It seems impossible. The nests are correspondingly big, and the foraging area of a colony extends over a hectare. Their foraging trails are like six lane superhighways that are maintained by specialized workers. And who can forget the classic image of a leafcutter going back to the nest with a severed leaf segment twice the size of the ant that is carrying it?

By far my favorite odd leafcutter fact is that the foragers returning to the nest carry along with their leaf segments specialized tiny worker hitchhikers whose purpose is to swat off parasitic flies that try to swoop down and lay their eggs on the foragers.

[Cdrueallen · Rating 5 out of 5]

In admirably clear and concise prose, Bert Holldobler and the great E.O. Wilson guide us through the startling world of leaf cutter ants. The book is embellished by photographs that are so otherworldly as to be terrifying. Watch the ants travel their highways, wide as a human hand, in packed columns ten ants across, like a Greek phalanx. See them stripping trees and carrying sections of cut leaves with tiny ants, whose job it is to shoo away parasitic flies, riding atop the leaf sections which when they arrive at the nest will be fed to fungus gardens. Learn how the ants fertilize their fungus strain, which in some cases has been passed down from nest to nest for millions of years, with their own excrement. See the nests that reach 25 feet below the ground and whose excavation required the removal of 40 tons of dirt. Marvel at this pinnacle of insect evolution, so alien to the one we occupy, but so clearly not inferior.

[Matt Ely · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is focused on one sub-group of ants, but it also serves as a good introduction to ants in general. The text is a combination of amazingly detailed photos and renderings alongside descriptions of life and routines in a leafcutter ant colony at various stages of development. 90% of it was at least intelligible to me as a lay person, which is as much as you can ask for when encountering a topic as foreign to me as this one.

A mark of success for the book is how many times I had to put it down and tell my wife what I'd just read.

The book does a good job of illustrating key elements of leafcutter ant life, like foraging, waste disposal, colony development, and reproduction. It felt like it was missing a chapter on larval development, but my guess is that that element was not different enough among the leafcutters compared to other ants. Still, reading the book, you'll feel much more equipped to know where to start to learn more about this fascinating topic on your own.

[Matthijs Smits · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book, even for those of us who no nothing about ants going in. Very scientifically written and built on a massive foundation of underlying research. These insects are some of the most interesting the world has ever seen, and the way they work together is unlike anything. Their level of organization and civilization sometimes reminds me of our own, human civilization.

This book partly inspired me to apply for a job at a company where a fungus is used to upgrade plant material to high-grade, protein-rich food. I didn't get the job but I found the analogy striking.

The only thing I found disappointing was that there was no mention of 'ordinary' ants, the ones in Europe that only gather food and don't really have a fungus garden. I just wanted to know how they compare because those are the only ones I see every day. However, I know the book is called 'The leafcutter ants' so I obviously can't take start out of my rating for that.

[Lucaxx · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interessantissimo librino sulla straordinaria complessità della società di queste formiche, che creano colonie con milioni di individui e architetture complesse, coltivano funghi, hanno caste ultraspecializzate e tecniche di raccolta raffinate. Una fetta di natura poco conosciuta e sorprendente.
Il libro è relativamente tecnico (alcune volte mi son dovuto fermare per cercare un termine non incluso nel glossario) e focalizzato sull'etologia, ottimamente corredato di foto e illustrazioni, e scritto e tradotto anche piuttosto bene. Lo si legge rapidamente e con piacere. Mi sarebbe solo piaciuto un approfondimento sul concetto di superorganismo, che è trattato piuttosto superficialmente: se la singola formica è un essere quasi demente, come avviene il salto per il quale una colonia è un'entità così intelligente?

[Francesca Riva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un libro più tecnico rispetto agli altri che ho letto della stessa collana. Denso e chiaro, alle volte un po' troppo specialistico, questo testo resta interessante e in circa 150 pagine riesce a descrivere con completezza ed efficacia questa incredibile specie di animali (formiche del genere Atta e Achromyrmex). Le fotografie a corredo e le illustrazioni aiutano tantissimo a farsi un'immagine chiara di ciò di cui si sta parlando.
A mio avviso l'unica pecca è che alla fine della lettura avrei voluto capire meglio la vita e il ciclo del superorganismo colonia, mentre invece qui ci si sofferma tanto sul ciclo vitale di regina, operaie e fungo simbionte. Il superorganismo c'è ed è spesso ribadito, ma viene raccontato solo per mezzo delle sue parti. Ma questo appunto non toglie nulla alla godibilità del libro.

[Wing · Rating 5 out of 5]

At just over 100 pages, this small book is packed with fascinating information and captivating photographs that are sure to inspire awe in any casual reader. The self-organizing and highly complex structures are truly beyond imagination. The intricate symbiosis among the ants, the cultivar fungi, and the fungicide-producing bacteria that suppress parasitic fungi is mind-boggling. Indeed, every facet of these superorganisms is captivating. No aspects of the Attine ants iis left uncovered.

I am not a myrmecologist, so I can’t tell how dated the book might be (it was published in 2011), but for a layperson, this should hardly matter. While several passages are challenging, the authors consistently provide quick summaries to clarify any confusion. The accompanying photographs and diagrams make the text easier to follow.
Five stars.

[Thien Nguyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really glad that Hölldobler and Wilson decided to break out their writings of Attini into a book of their own. Easy read that does a great job of being accessible to anyone while not shying away from using very specific scientific terminology.

I highly recommend to anyone who finds ants and insects fascinating already and to anyone who is willing to be impressed by them for the ant version of advanced civilization.

Also if you happen to be flying to New Orleans most of the book can be read on the flight. Great preparation for the Audubon Insectarium where you can watch a Leafcutter colony in action.

[Arthur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting read on the leafcutter ants showing how this society exists and multiplies, complete with many beautiful photos.

As the author describes, the ants form the town of the insect world, with leafcutter ants forming the domesticated farming cultures as they curate their mutualistic fungus. As humans developed farming to grow their civilizations to the pinnacle of animal success, so ants have cultivated their fungus to expand their populations upwards, with the leafcutters forming this pinnacle of insect evolution.