Adventures among ants: a global safari with a cast of trillions.

Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
Octavo, paperback, 280 pp. colour photographs.

Intrepid international explorer, biologist, and photographer Mark W. Moffett, takes us around the globe on a strange and colorful journey in search of the hidden world of ants. 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. This book 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. Also available in hardcover [stock id 31350].