"The Superorganism" is not dumbed down for lay readers. In general, the prose is accessible, robust and witty. Occasionally, to satisfy a scholarly audience, Wilson and Holldobler use technical language. Here's an example: "A cladistic analysis of yeast-culturing attine ants (Cyphomyrmex rimosus group) revealed that this clade is not basal but actually derived within the lower attine ants."
Yet non-biologists need not throw up their hands in frustration. The authors have compiled a thorough glossary that explains nearly every specialized term. (A "clade," for instance, is "a species or set of species representing a distinct branch in a phylogenetic tree and hence of single common ancestry.")
Insect architecture serves as a snapshot of insect behavior; it is often a spatial representation of the divisions of labor within a species. And just as in human architecture, what matters is location, location, location.
Remarkably, honeybees choose a nest site by, in a sense, voting. Scout bees survey the turf, then communicate the desirability of various spots to the rest of the hive by frenzied waggle dancing (a practice less common among human Realtors since the collapse of the housing market). Onlookers and competing scouts evaluate the quality of the dances (and the dancer's conviction) to determine where the hive will set up house. "It is, in effect, a democracy," the authors write.
Ants are more totalitarian, and their rigid caste system, limited life choices and 120 million years of evolution have made them frighteningly able to crush their enemies.
"The Superorganism" can't help but leave us with respect for ants, and relief that they are not the size of ponies. In Robert Heinlein's science-fiction novel "Starship Troopers," humans fight to save the Earth from an invasion of giant insects. For Heinlein, the insect superorganism is a metaphor for totalitarian communism; the humans for capitalist individualism. And in the book, people prevail.
But that was fiction. In life, I'm not sure we'd stand a chance.
