I sat a bit in silence wondering what could I write in this post in order to instill a sense of curiosity in you when it comes to ants.
The study of ants is called myrmecology and there are only 500 people on this Planet who do this as a job: studying ants. Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson wrote a fascinating book called Journey to the Ants. and I have found it to be a delightful different reading than what I am used to.
I will list a list of interesting facts about ants and I invite you afterward to check a short and a long review of this wonderful book.
ants have lived on Earth for more than 10 million of their generations, while we humans have existed for no more than a hundred thousand human generations. They have been here way before us.
if you think that in vitro fertilization is a super discovery in the medical world, you are mistaken. Ants have been doing this for millions of years. The ant queen has a spermotheca ( sperm bank) near the tip of her abdomen. At her first encounter with a male she collects the fluid and keeps it/releases it whenever she wants during her lifetime. So she basically only needs the male once because she can safely store the sperm for years.
Harvard has the largest ant collection in the world
ants move more soil than earth worms
ants are the most aggressive and war like of all animals
-trehalose is the natural blood sugar of insects
-some ants have jaws that can cut through leather
Here is my short review of this book:
Here it is the long review of this book:
