TALES FROM THE ANT WORLD

The world-renowned ant expert cleans out his desk, which—no surprise—contains many gems.

Pulitzer Prize–winning author and naturalist Wilson’s writing on broader scientific subjects have won him awards and no lack of controversy. Now 90, largely retired from fieldwork and scholarship but an indefatigable writer, he has assembled scraps of autobiography and anecdotes on his favorite insect. The author provides evidence that the secret of happiness lies in having an obsession rather than money, talent, genius, or even a cheerful disposition. From childhood, passion for natural history consumed him, beginning with all creatures, then focused on insects and, eventually, ants. Other memoirists agonize over dysfunctional parents, questionable friends, disappointment in love, or poor life decisions. Wilson has had his share, but he also has ants, which provide contentment in his life. With regular detours into personal experiences, the author delivers two dozen chapters on their history, ecology, diet, and the organization of the colony (no ant lives alone), without ignoring the dozens of parasites it supports. Ants make up the dominant land carnivore in their size range, and estimates show that “all the living ants weigh about the same as all the living humans.” Though infectiously enthusiastic about ants, Wilson is no sentimentalist; he warns that nothing about an ant’s life provides moral uplift. Males are useless except as sources of sperm for the queen. Females do all the work, and “service to the colony is everything.” Young ants work at safe jobs such as attending the queen. As they grow older, their jobs become riskier—from sentinel to forager to guard to warrior. Put more plainly, “where humans send their young adults into battle, ants send their old ladies.” Workers who encounter a dead ant in the nest dump it “in the colony refuse pile,” unless they eat it. If it’s only injured and dying, they eat it.

Though somewhat disorganized, the content and quality of the writing is consistently top-notch.