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The leafcutter ants : civilization by instinct / Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson.

by Hölldobler, Bert, 1936-

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New York, NY : W.W. Norton, [2010], c2011.

Leaf-cutting ants.

Insect-plant relationships.

Insect societies.

9780393338683 (pbk.) :

0393338681 (pbk.)

xii, 160 p. : ill. (chiefly col.) ; 21 cm.

The ultimate superorganisms -- The attine breakthrough -- The ascent of the leafcutters -- The Atta caste system -- Harvesting vegetation -- Communication in Atta -- The ant-fungus mutualism -- Hygiene in the symbiosis -- Waste management -- Agropredators and agroparasites -- Leafcutter nests -- Trails and trunk routes.

"The Leafcutter Ants provides a 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 croplandfrom Louisiana to Patagonia. Inspired by a section of the authors' acclaimed The Superorganism, this illustrated work provides the explanation of what a social order with a half-billion years of animal evolution has achieved."--BOOK JACKET.

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