Ants

by Gary Skinner, Geoffrey Allen, Geoffrey Allen (Illustrator)

Overview

Information on the biology of ants and various techniques for studying ants is included. An extensive chapter on ant identification forms the bulk of this handbook.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781907807602
Publisher:	Pelagic Publishing
Publication date:	07/22/2013
Series:	Naturalists' Handbooks , #24
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	83
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Gary Skinner began a degree in chemistry but soon decided to swap to biology and obtained a degree in 1972. He then went on to study the wood ant Formica rufa for his PhD. After this he went on to a career in teaching until his retirement in 2008. In the 80s whilst on a trip to Skomer he saw a little book on British buttercups and thought 'I could do one on ants'. That was published in 1987 and its success led him to think about a Naturalists’ Handbook, which came out in 1996. Teaching in a boarding school was very demanding but he managed to fit in some ant observing, especially in the 90s when he undertook survey work in the Northwest of England during a sabbatical term. He has written extensively across the biological sciences and was editor of the magazine Catalyst for 10 years until 2017. In retirement he has continued to write and mark GCSE and A level examinations. Andrew Jarman has had a life-long fascination with ants. He claims that his earliest memories are of discovering there were three types of ants in his parents’ garden (black, red, and yellow) before he learned to walk. Over the decades since he has accumulated an extensive field and taxonomic knowledge of ants in Britain, as well as gaining a working knowledge of the ant faunas of continental Europe, Central and North America, and South-East Asia. He has been a member of the Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society since its earliest days and was a past committee member. In his day job, he is a lecturer and researcher in biomedical sciences, specialising in the neurobiology of the laboratory fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Biology of ants
Identification: Key I Worker ants; Key II Queen ants; Key II Male ants.
Quick-check filed key to common ants
Notes on the commoner British species
Techniques
Some useful addresses; References and further reading.