Intrepid international explorer, biologist, and
photographer Mark W. 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.
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'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. We find them
creating marketplaces and assembly lines and dealing
with issues we think of as uniquely human - including
hygiene, recycling, and warfare. ''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. Ants are world-class road
builders, handling traffic problems on thoroughfares
that dwarf our highway systems in their complexity Ants
with the largest societies often deploy complicated
military tactics.Some ants have evolved from
hunter-gatherers into farmers, domesticating other
insects and growing crops for food. |
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