A lifelong fascination with ants led me to read one excellent book last year (see my review of The Lives of Ants) but now I’ve chanced upon an even more remarkable book. Adventures among Ants: A Global Safari with a Cast of Trillions, by famed wildlife photographer and writer Mark W. Moffett, is just the tonic for anyone who stills stops to marvel at a long, bustling trail of ants on a city footpath. Moffett combines a partial memoir – that part of his life tracking down, investigating and photographing ants – with a wonderful, nuanced introduction to six ant types. From aggressive omnivore marauder ants to massed army ants, from weaver ants high up in the forest’s canopy to the weaver ant slavers, from leafcutter ants tending their gardens to the supercolonies built by the Argentine ant, Moffett dovetails his own tales of discovery with revelatory overviews of each ant species. The Argentine ant, overrunning one continent after another, intrigued me the most. Four supercolonies of them, the largest one 160 times more numerous than the entire human race, blanket California, and between these colonies lie border areas subject to never-ending trench warfare killing millions annually.
Moffett is a sparkling writer and Adventures among Ants would be superb as pure text. But it is the photography that had me gasping. Shot after short, beautifully taken and beautifully presented, brings ants to life as I’ve never seen before.
A stunning, approachable window into the world of ants. 4½ stars.