Think you know everything there is to know about ants? Think again. Biologist Mark Moffett, “the Indiana Jones of Entomology,” has traveled the globe on a strange and wonderful journey into the hidden world of ants. In tales from Nigeria, Indonesia, the Amazon, Australia and California, Moffett uncovers a parallel ant universe rife with warfare, terrorism, traffic jams and highway infrastructure. For example, the largest battles recorded for any living thing are going on right now in Southern California, where a million Argentine ants die each month in territorial disputes raging underfoot in the suburbs of San Diego; this invasive ant species, with unified colonies ranging up to a trillion individuals, is causing massive environmental damage across the state. What else are these coordinated, creative creatures up to? What can we learn from their behaviors, which are strikingly similar to our own?
Mark Moffett will speak and sign copies of his book on Sunday, May 23 at 2 p.m. at Caltech's Baxter Lecture Hall as part of the Skeptics Society's Distinguished Lecture Series.
Guest:
Mark Moffett, author of Adventures Among Ants: A Global Safari With a Cast of Trillions (University of California Press). He is a biologist, explorer, National Geographic photographer and Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution