Delighted to be with you today as part of the Blog Tour for the wonderful EMPIRE OF ANTS by SUZANNE FOITZIK & OLAF FRITSCHE. My thanks to the publisher, authors and Anne of Random Things Tours for letting me be part of it all!
ABOUT THE BOOK
‘Thrilling, compellingly readable and paradigm-shattering’ – Charles Foster, author of Being a Beast
Ants have been walking the Earth since the age of the dinosaurs. Today there are one million ants for every one of us. The closer you get to ants, the more human they look: they build megacities, grow crops, raise livestock, tend their young and infirm, and even make vaccines. They also have a darker side: they wage war, enslave rivals and rebel against their oppressors. From fearsome army ants, who stage twelve-hour hunting raids where they devour thousands, to gentle leafcutters gardening in their peaceful underground kingdoms, every ant is engineered by nature to fulfil their particular role.
Acclaimed biologist Susanne Foitzik has travelled the globe to study these master architects of Earth. Joined by journalist Olaf Fritsche, Foitzik invites readers deep into her world – in the field and in the lab – and will inspire new respect for ants as a global superpower. Fascinating and action-packed, Empire of Ants will open your eyes to the secret societies thriving right beneath your feet
PUBLISHED BY OCTOPUS BOOKS
PURCHASE LINKS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Susanne Foitzik (Author) Susanne Foitzik is an evolutionary biologist, behavioral scientist and international authority on ants. After completing her PhD in ant evolution and behavior and conducting postdoctoral work in the US, she became a professor at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Currently, she teaches at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, where she studies the behaviors of slaveholding ants and different work roles in insect colonies. Her findings have been published in over 100 scientific papers to date.
Olaf Fritsche (Author)
Olaf Fritsche is a science journalist and biophysicist with a PhD in biology. He was previously an editor at the German-language edition of Scientific American, is the author and coauthor
MY REVIEW
As a gardener myself, I’m very aware of ants! But I have to be honest in not really knowing much about them, other than they’re very good at crawling over you when you sit on the grass! But consider me now an ant convert! I’m seriously impressed by these little creatures after reading this book, and you will be too! Who knew something so little could be so powerful and so complex!
For every one of us, there’s a million of them! And within their communities there are so many similarities to humans and the way we live our lives – they even wage wars like us! And this book tracks the different varieties around the world, noting their differences, their similarities, their quirks and their unique traits and I was utterly captivated by these insects.
The work put in by the team behind this book is exhaustive and you really get a good glimpse into the hard work and the less than glamorous research trips they find themselves on to investigate ants a little closer.
There’s always a danger with these kind of books that it goes a little OTT with detail and feeling quite clinical with the facts, but this book does a great job of balancing out the facts with the intriguing aspects of ‘ant culture’! The queen system is fascinating, as well as looking at how they deal with ant illnesses, their use of sound and scent, how they defend themselves, and just the sheer amount of work it takes to be part of an ant colony! There’s even ant zombies!! How could you not want to learn more about them?!
This was a truly fascinating, extensive and informative book all about the world of ants and I found myself totally in awe of ants after reading it!
Books and Me! 
