num_pages: 192
description: From the Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of The Ants comes this dynamic and visually spectacular portrait of Earth's ultimate superorganism. The Leafcutter Ants is the most detailed and authoritative description of any ant species ever produced. With a text suitable for both a lay and a scientific audience the book provides an unforgettable 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 brilliantly illustrated work provides the ultimate explanation of what a social order with a half-billion years of animal evolution has achieved. Four-color throughout 56 photographs
language: English
title: The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company