Kingdom of ants : José Celestino Mutis and the dawn of natural history in the New World

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Kingdom of ants : José Celestino Mutis and the dawn of natural history in the New World

Edward O. Wilson and José M. Gómez Durán

Johns Hopkins University Press, c2010

  • : alk. paper

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Includes bibliographical references

内容説明・目次

内容説明

One of the earliest New World naturalists, Jose Celestino Mutis began his professional life as a physician in Spain and ended it as a scientist and natural philosopher in modern-day Colombia. Drawing on new translations of Mutis's nearly forgotten writings, this fascinating story of scientific adventure in eighteenth-century South America retrieves Mutis's contributions from obscurity. In 1760, the 28-year-old Mutis-newly appointed as the personal physician of the Viceroy of the New Kingdom of Granada-embarked on a 48-year exploration of the natural world of northern South America. His thirst for knowledge led Mutis to study the region's flora, become a professor of mathematics, construct the first astronomical observatory in the Western Hemisphere, and amass one of the largest scientific libraries in the world. He translated Newton's writings and penned essays about Copernicus; lectured extensively on astronomy, geography, and meteorology; and eventually became a priest. But, as two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward O. Wilson and Spanish natural history scholar Jose M. Gomez Duran reveal in this enjoyable and illustrative account, one of Mutis's most magnificent accomplishments involved ants. Acting at the urging of Carl Linnaeus-the father of taxonomy-shortly after he arrived in the New Kingdom of Granada, Mutis began studying the ants that swarmed everywhere. Though he lacked any entomological training, Mutis built his own classification for the species he found and named at a time when New World entomology was largely nonexistent. His unorthodox catalog of army ants, leafcutters, and other six-legged creatures found along the banks of the Magdalena provided a starting point for future study. Wilson and Duran weave a compelling, fast-paced story of ants on the march and the eighteenth-century scientist who followed them. A unique glance into the early world of science exploration, Kingdom of Ants is a delight to read and filled with intriguing information.

目次

Prologue 1. Who Was Mutis? 2. The Making of an Eighteenth-Century Naturalist 3. The Scientific Contributions of Jose Celestino Mutis 4. Mutis Seeks Advice 5. Mutis Begins His Study of Ants 6. Ants Are Transported by Ships 7. Ant Plants and Plant Ants 8. Mutis Learns about the Mule-Train (Leafcutter) Ants 9. Unending Struggles against the Mule-Train Ants 10. Ant Wars 11. Mutis Solves the Mystery of the Nomadic Pataloas 12. Mutis Measures the Size of an Army-Ant Colony 13. Mutis Tracks the Armies of Ants 14. Mutis Studies the Gender of Ants and Makes an Amazing Discovery 15. Mutis' Other Ants 16. How Good a Scientist Was Mutis? Epilogue Acknowledgments

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