Empire of Ants

The Hidden Worlds and Extraordinary Lives of Earth's Tiny Conquerors

By: Olaf Fritsche, Susanne Foitzik

Narrated by: Cat Gould

Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's Summary

Ants have been walking the Earth since the age of the dinosaurs. Today there are one million ants for every one of us. 

The closer you get to ants, the more human they look: they build megacities, grow crops, raise livestock, tend their young and infirm and even make vaccines. They also have a darker side: they wage war, enslave rivals and rebel against their oppressors. From fearsome army ants, who stage 12-hour hunting raids where they devour thousands, to gentle leafcutters gardening in their peaceful underground kingdoms, every ant is engineered by nature to fulfil their particular role. 

Acclaimed biologist Susanne Foitzik has travelled the globe to study these master architects of Earth. Joined by journalist Olaf Fritsche, Foitzik invites listeners deep into her world - in the field and in the lab - and will inspire new respect for ants as a global superpower.

Fascinating and action-packed, Empire of Ants will open your eyes to the secret societies thriving right beneath your feet.

©2021 Susanne Foitzik and Olaf Fritsche (P)2021 Octopus Publishing Group

Excellent book almost ruined by monotone narration

The narrator has a great British accent and honey-smooth authoritative voice like a BBC newsreader, so I thought it was going to be a lovely listen. But for some reason she chose to read the entire book in a monotone in the style of an airport PA announcement, which made it highly irritating, difficult to follow and all-too-easy to zone out of. That's a great pity, because the book was pretty good. I did struggle through to the end, albeit taking a few weeks rather than my usual few days because I really had to be in the right mood for the narration not to grate on me.

Ants are fascinating

This is true and is conveyed in the writing of the book brilliantly with a plethora of examples. The writer is clearly very happy with its choice of a career. It's a little hard to keep up with all the latin names of the little creatures.

Sadly the performance isn't on par with the rest of the work. It's monotone and doesn't distinguish between a sentence, paragraph or chapter.