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 | | The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies by Bert Hölldobler, Edward O. Wilson ISBN-10: 9780393067040 ISBN-10: 0-393-06704-1 ISBN-13: 9780393067040 ISBN-13: 978-0-393-06704-0 Hardcover 2008-11-17 W. W. Norton & Company Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description The Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of The Ants render the extraordinary lives of the social insects in this visually spectacular volume. The Superorganism promises to be one of the most important scientific works published in this decade. Coming eighteen years after the publication of The Ants, this new volume expands our knowledge of the social insects (among them, ants, bees, wasps, and termites) and is based on remarkable research conducted mostly within the last two decades. These superorganisms—a tightly knit colony of individuals, formed by altruistic cooperation, complex communication, and division of labor—represent one of the basic stages of biological organization, midway between the organism and the entire species. The study of the superorganism, as the authors demonstrate, has led to important advances in our understanding of how the transitions between such levels have occurred in evolution and how life as a whole has progressed from simple to complex forms. Ultimately, this book provides a deep look into a part of the living world hitherto glimpsed by only a very few. 110 color, 100 black-and-white. | ||
Reviews | ||
Science Book club selection This was a VERY inforative book but it was NOT an easy read. The graphics helped but there was more data provided than I ever wanted to know about ants. | ||
Informative, But a Dry Read First of all, I am not an entomologist, but insects have always been a fascination of mine. As a kid, I read over and over the few books I could get about ants and bees. So I was expecting that this book would have that same fascination for me. If you are looking for information about ants and bees as social insects, this book is full of fascinating and very detailed information -- down to the pheromones certain species emit for specific tasks. Even for someone with a fairly good entomology background, though, I found the text really dense with scientific terminology and jargon. I got the sense this was written for other ant specialists, not for the general population or hobbyists. For facts and information, I would say this book is a 5 star book. However, I guess I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't a more entertaining read. I really enjoy natural history and anecdotes about insects. I work as a naturalist for the State Parks system and lead nature hikes and classes. Ants are everywhere, and I was hoping both to feed my own curiosity and evoke the curiosity of others with information gleaned from this book. Instead, I felt like I was reading dense text book. I could read a few pages at a time, but then had to put it down. So as a read just for pleasure it was kind of a bust. Hence the overall rating of 3. | ||
WOnderful read Saw the E.O. Wilson and figured it would be a good interesting read. So far, partly into it, I was right. Something about ants that makes me smile. No matter where I travel, or what I'm doing, they are there. Wish I'd started looking earlier ! Fun book. | ||
A Superorganism I love the book and so does my grand son Miles who is 5 years old, he loves the pictures. So waht do ants play for fun - or do they just work and fight? | ||
The Superorganism Excellent book, somewhat on the highly technical side but never boring, always challanging. The book is full of great drawings and photographs! | ||