Loved it, very informational with some wonderful anecdotes.

Dr Gordon has a lot of questions about Ants. She and her graduate students do some painstaking work to get the answers .

It's been a long time since I read this book but I recall it being a good recap of Gordon's long history of research as well as a summary of what is still to be learned. Less for the casually interested in nature and more for those who think digging in dirt for hours under the hot desert sun to count ants is an acceptable use of time.

This book is an easy to read account of a series of several experiments observing harvester ant colonies in a small patch of land in the American Southwest. It's a great read even if your interests are not particularly ant-focused, as the author carefully describes her experimental methods and her well thought out methodology is itself a pleasant exercise in logical thinking. With any interest at all in ants this book is even more worth reading.

This is a working scientist's detailed view of the ants she studies, told interestingly, with a doggedly curious, hardworking humility that is very appealing: she's studying ants, after all. Year after year, mounting to decades, she goes out to the desert to actually observe, analyze and learn about her tiny hive creatures.

Really interesting book with a ton of information about ants. The scientist who wrote this book has been working in the fields with ants for 17 YEARS! The book was kind of weirdly structured, as it first describes properties of the ant colonies, goes on to describe interactions of colonies, and then looks at individual colony behaviors. Personally, I would have preferred a complete bottom-up approach, but whatever. The book contains just about anything you want to know about red harvester ants, including some interesting information on how to study them, and what it takes to be an ant scientist.The writing was really plain, and often hard at times to read without losing focus. Still, she really details a lot about the experimental process in science, something many scientists don't do in their books. In fact, the amount of experimental detail could allow you to start your own ant investigations. Ants are fascinating because by following simple local rules, they can create complex global behaviors, information which could be useful to understand complex systems. One thing she notes about ants is that ants really focus on pattern of interaction, as opposed to specific interactions to determine their behavior. Thy also have behaviors that change in response to size. This book has inspired me to try and do some ant experiments of my on at some point in the near future.

I have a copy of this book and often open it, just to entertain myself. It's a fascinating account of just how 'ants work'.

While the writing is not superb, the ideas presented are. Overall, this is a great book. It is a fantastic exploration of how simple animals, with simple brains, can create and maintain complex societies, and accomplish complex goals.

Probably most appropriate for those interested in experimental methods and outcomes. I like that there is no final answer, like science should be, there are answers that lead to better questions. I was quick to find parallels to human behaviors and the author addressed this in the epilogue.

“Ants do not offer moral instructions, but they show how simple parts make complex living systems”.

I gave this book 2 stars because it does what it's supposed to: It explains how an insect society (of ants) is organized and contains interesting information. Unfortunately, I expected more from it, but that was because I didn't really pay attention to the title so much as I did the ants on the cover.

I find ants fascinating, and Gordon does a great job at illustrating the different functions of different ants, their movement patterns, and reactions to various stimuli and species, which was great...

I have to say though, the book was quite boring overall, and even though it is an academic work, it has no right to be this boring, darnit. I found Gordon gave away the basics in the beginning, and subsequent chapters added little other than to re-confirm that 'we don't actually know why they do this.' Additionaly, her name-dropping and experimental minutiae - which take up half the book - should appeal to people in the field of ant ecology almost exclusively. In the end, the conclusion is that nobody really knows why ants do what they do, or exactly how, and you won't really have much of a clearer understanding after reading the book, other than the basic ant organization structure and interesting suppositions such as that the queen has no power or control over the nest. Skim through it quickly, and then go hang out by an ant hill for a few hours instead of reading this dull text.

True Rating: 2.3 stars

It throws little light on the issues I was more curious about: how did specialized behavior on simple units evolved? While it points to the fact that there are different role changes, caused largely by environmental changes perceived as chemical signals based on frequency and intensity of contact. Fascinating that nests behave differently as community at different ages, given that except the queen all ants live only 1 year. The grooming of the ants give them their group chemical signature, so an alien ant raised on that nest could ass as one of them, as is only the exterior chemicals that are perceived. Can you train Ants to do productive work? Detect oil patches? Collect diamond dust?

A good book about scientific research. Easy to read. Not too complicated or in scientific terminology. You can learn something about ants ant their behavior model. Maybe not for everyone, but more for ones that could be interested in the area for one or another reason.