It was choosing ants in the first place. These little six-legged warriors are the most abundant of all insects. As such, they play major roles in land environments around the world. Of equal importance for science, ants, along with termites and honeybees, have the most advanced social systems of all animals. Yet, surprisingly, at the time I entered college only about a dozen scientists around the world were engaged full-time in the study of ants. I had struck gold before the rush began. Almost every research project I began thereafter, no matter how unsophisticated (and all were
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