Know Your Ants
By Carol Stocker
Your garden is a miniature world of living organisms, none of them more remarkable than ants, which can be truly said to run the world. Life on earth could survive nicely without humans, but wouldn't last long without aunts, to paraphrase famed Harvard scientist Edward O. Wilson.
There are more than 140 ant species found in New England. "A Field Guide to the Ants of New England" (Yale) is the first truly user-friendly regional guide to them.
This important book sets new standards for insect identification for amateur and professional naturalists with its 500 meticulous line drawings, hundreds of photographs and detailed distribution maps showing where each species has been collected in New England. It also explains the evolution and ecology of these insects. Authors Aaron M. Ellison, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Elizabeth J. Farnsworth and Gary D. Alpert are to be congratulated for a milestone in the understanding and appreciation of ants.
Carol Stocker has been writing about gardening for the Boston Globe for 30 years. She has won the top newspaper writing award of the Garden Writer's Association of American three times. Her newest book is "The Boston Globe Illustrated New England Gardening Almanac."
