Adventures Among Ants - Mark W. Moffett [0]
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the General
Endowment Fund of the University of California Press Foundation.
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University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2010 by Mark W. Moffett
Title page: A Bornean carpenter ant, Camponotus schmitzi, traveling along the spiral base of a pitcher plant. The ant fishes prey out of the liquid-filled pitcher of this carnivorous plant (see photograph on page 142).
Ogden Nash’s “The Ant” © 1935 by Ogden Nash is reprinted with permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.
Design and composition: Jody Hanson
Text: 9.5/14 Scala
Display: Grotesque Condensed
Indexing: Victoria Baker
Printed through: Asia Pacific Offset, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moffett, Mark W.
Adventures among ants : a global safari with a cast of trillions / Mark W. Moffett.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-520-26199-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Ants—Behavior. 2. Ant communities. 3. Ants—Ecology. I. Title.
QL568.F7M64 2010
595.79'615—dc22
2009040610
Manufactured in China
19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R 1997)
This book celebrates a triumvirate of extraordinary human beings:
Edward O. Wilson, and his elemental joy in the naturalist’s life;
Mary G. Smith, and her success at giving the field sciences their grandeur;
and Melissa W. Wells, and our partnership in this life of adventures
Contents
Introduction:Travels with My Ants
A Brief Primer on Ants
Marauder Ant, the Ultimate Omnivore
1. Strength in Numbers
2. The Perfect Swarm
3. Division of Labor
4. Infrastructure
5. Group Transport
African Army Ant, Raiders on the Swarm
6. Big Game Hunters
7. Clash of the Titans
8. Notes from Underground
Weaver Ant, Empress of the Air
9. Canopy Empires
10. Fortified Forests
11. Negotiating the Physical World
Amazon Ant, the Slavemaker
12. Slaves of Sagehen Creek
13. Abduction in the Afternoon
Leafcutter Ant, the Constant Gardener
14. A Fungus Farmer’s Life
15. The Origins of Agriculture
Argentine Ant, the Global Invader
16. Armies of the Earth
17. The Immortal Society
Conclusion: Four Ways of Looking at an Ant
Acknowledgments and a Note on Content
Notes
Index
introduction travels with my ants
A pale morning in June 4 AM
the country roads still greyish and moist
tunnelling endlessly through pines
a car had passed by on the dusty road
where an ant was out with her pine needle working
she was wandering around in the huge F of Firestone
that had been pressed into the sandy earth
for a hundred and twenty kilometers.
Fir needles are heavy.
Time after time she slipped back with her badly balanced
load
and worked it up again
and skidded back again
travelling over the great and luminous Sahara lit by clouds.
ADAPTED FROM ROLF JACOBSEN, “COUNTRY ROADS,”
TRANSLATED BY ROBERT BLY
My first memory is of ants.
I was down in the dirt in my backyard, watching a miniature metropolis. A hundred ants were enraptured with the bread crumbs I had given them, and they enraptured me as they ebbed and flowed, a blur of interactions. I marveled at how they sped into action when an entrance cone collapsed, or when one found a crumb or wrestled and killed an enemy worker. I could see that ants addressed problems through a social interplay, just as people did.
Years later, I met a group of Inuit children who had been