The Army Ant Death Spiral Renowned ecologist and conservationist William Beebe’s 1921 tome, Edge of the Jungle, chronicled an incredible event in the teeming forests of Kartabo in Guyana. In the recorded history of entomology, no human had witnessed anything like it. He wrote: Yet, whatever the simile, the net of unconscious precedent is […]
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The Bathysphere In our previous exploration on the death spirals of army ants, we met the enigmatic William Beebe, ornithologist, entomologist, ichthyologist, and conservationist. Beebe pioneered a holistic approach to ecology. In order to understand a place in totality, one must study the place in totality. Having practiced this method multiple times in the
Tetrapteryx Ecologist and conservationist William Beebe produced a litany of astonishing scientific achievements. He pioneered the holistic study of biomes, now the standard procedure. He became the first human to study deepsea fishes in their native environments. He discovered the odd phenomenon of army ant death spirals. His first natural love, however, belonged to