The Idea Blog

Can’t resist sharing this exchange from David Pogue’s (DP) interview with biologist (and ant expert) E.O. Wilson in Pogue’s NYT column “Circuits” this week:

Let me tell you, ants are the dominant insects. They make up as much as a quarter of the biomass of all insects in the world. They are the principal predators. They’re the cemetery workers. Ants are the leading removers of dead creatures on the land. And the rest of life is substantially dependent upon them.

In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems. Take away humans, and everything would come back and flourish. But I don’t wanna go down that down that road for a broad audience. (LAUGHTER)

DP: I’m just curious: when you see an ant in the kitchen…Has your life’s work caused you to reach a point where you wouldn’t just stomp on it?

EOW: Oh, no. (LAUGHTER) I’ve slaughtered more ants in my life than possibly any living person. Whole colonies.

If you like or want to know more about E.O. Wilson, this episode of RadioLab is great.