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Adventures Among Ants: A Global Safari With a Cast ofTrillionsAuthor(s): Jeffrey Sosa-CalvoSource: Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington,114(3):430-431. 2012.Published By: Entomological Society of WashingtonDOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4289/0013-8797.1143.430URL: http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.4289/0013-8797.1143.430

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PROC. ENTOMOL. SOC. WASH.

114(3), 2012, pp. 430–431

BOOK REVIEW

Adventures Among Ants: a GlobalSafari With a Cast of Trillions. MarkW. Moffett. 2010. 288 pp. University ofCalifornia Press, Berkeley and LosAngeles. ISBN: 978-0-520-26199-0.

Adventures Among Ants: a Global Sa-fari With a Cast of Trillions is a book thatwill appeal to people with a wide rangeof backgrounds. The price of AdventuresAmong Ants is $30, a rate affordable toa large base of readers. For the laypersonthis book may answer some questionshe/she might have regarding the studyof ants and the kind of work biologistsdo. For students of all academic levels,it will serve as a very basic introductionto myrmecology and the rigor of field-work. It is a good read for myrmecolo-gists, enabling them to identify withsome of the situations lived by Moffett.Every reader will be awed by the accom-plishments of ants, the rigor of fieldworknecessary to study ants, and the stunningphotographs.

In short, Adventures Among Ants isa compendium of stories. The booktells the stories of some very successfulgroups of ants and the stories of thededicated naturalist and myrmecologistwho goes to great lengths in pursuit ofunderstanding their complex behaviors.Moffett, being the great storyteller thathe is, will introduce you to his world,making it hard for you to put this bookdown.

Adventures Among Ants starts with ashort autobiography, pointing out the keymoments in Moffett’s successful and fas-cinating career, from larva to adulthood,

in his study of these social insects. Thebook continues with a very short primeron ants; the book is then divided into sixmain sections, which altogether comprisethe 17 chapters that form the main body ofthe book. All of these sections are accom-panied with complementary notes andbibliographic references for those readerseager to learn more about the facts listedby Moffett.

The first section describes results ofover two years of fieldwork conductedby Moffett in southern Asia. During histime in the field, Moffett investigated thebiological and behavioral aspects of themarauder ant Pheidologeton diversus,which was the focus of his doctoral dis-sertation. In this section and those thatfollow, experiences are narrated inMoffett’scharacteristically enthusiastic manner, in-cluding countless anecdotes. Togetherthese make the science and natural his-tory of the presented material easy todigest. Sections two to six, which includearmy ants, slave-making ants, leaf-cutterants, and Argentine ants, are organizedfrom nomadic hunter-gatherers (armyants) to highly successful invasive species(Argentine ant) creating an analogywith progress in human societies. Thebook ends describing his four perspec-tives on ants: as individuals, as socie-ties, as organisms, and as collectivelyintelligent.

Accompanying the excellent narrativesof the main “characters” in the book arethe incredible color photographs that doc-ument different aspects of the biology ofthe subjects of this book. For example, thebook features many macro photographs,such as a major worker army ant beinghelped by a median worker to carry apiece of a centipede, or a minor leafcutterworker in its fungal garden collecting a

* Edited by David G. Furth; accepted by Robert

R. Kula

clump of gongylidia. It also features self-portrait photographs that document therisks of getting too close to a nest entranceor a foraging column. And it also featureslandscape photographs that document thedifferent habitats where ants live. Mostpeople do not think of ants as aestheticallyor physically attractive. Most peoplewould rather point their cameras at more“charming” animals like birds, mammals,butterflies, and perhaps some beetles. Butin “Adventures Among Ants” Moffett hasproved “most people” wrong! Never couldthe adage “a picture is worth a thousandwords” be more appropriate. Each one ofMoffett’s superb pictures captures a spe-cial moment in the life of an ant, and theybeautifully complement the text. Thisbook demonstrates that Moffett is anoutstanding nature photographer andresearcher. These are the same highquality shots that have appeared in popularscientific magazines such as National

Geographic. His photographs have alsobeen exhibited at the National Museumof Natural History in Washington, DC, agreat recognition of his talent.

As I said at the beginning, this is abook for everyone. Moffett has done asuperb job of acquainting the reader withhis research through his narration, hisfun anecdotes, and his great photo-graphs. Hopefully this book will moti-vate many more people to study thesewonders of nature.

Jeffrey Sosa-Calvo, Maryland Centerfor Systematic Entomology, Department ofEntomology, University of Maryland, 4112Plant Sciences Building, College Park,Maryland 20742, U.S.A.; Department ofEntomology, National Museum of NaturalHistory, Smithsonian Institution, P.O. Box37012, MRC 188 CE516, Washington, DC20013-7012, U.S.A. (e-mail: sossajef@si.edu)

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