But once the ants and termites jumped the high barrier that prevents the vast variety of evolving animal groups from becoming fully social, they dominated the world.

Ants have the most complicated social organization on earth next to humans.

I was a senior in high school when I decided I wanted to work on ants as a career. I just fell in love with them, and have never regretted it.

Ants are the dominant insects of the world, and they've had a great impact on habitats almost all over the land surface of the world for more than 50-million years.

In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems.

Well, 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.