City of Leafcutter Ants: A Sustainable Society of Millions

Via vivid prose, Hevron (The Longest Journey) introduces the leafcutter ants of Central America’s tropical forests, beings whose highly organized social structure supports millions of inhabitants. Readers begin by viewing a parade of tiny insects carrying leaf fragments aboveground; the events that unfold in their networks of underground passages, shown in cutaway views, are just as fascinating. In lime greens and earth tones, graphic-style close-ups use simple, cutout-style shapes and expressive lines to show the ants at work. Leafcutter farmers “chew the leaf cuttings into a paste and feed it to a fungus garden”—fungus brought to the colony by its queen at its inception. This food sustains the population of eight million differentiated insects: caretakers that nurture the colony’s larvae and queen, pharmacists that make antibiotics from their own bodies to keep disease at bay, soldiers that repel an intruding frog, and more. At last, taking a few of the nest’s fungal threads with her, a new queen leaves the community to start another. Throughout this work that compares the colony to New York City in size and complexity, engaging descriptions (“Bystanders zig, zag.... Haulers skitter, scatter”) make readers feel its industry and complexity. More about the species concludes. Ages 4–8. Agent: Kirsten Hall, Catbird Productions. (June)