A short story about the Trailhead ant colony

31 December 2021

The life and times of the Trailhead ant colony, which thrived for some twenty years, in this work of fiction written in 2010 by American biologist and writer E. O. Wilson, who died on 26 December 2021.

But now a second crisis arose. The candidate royals began to quarrel among themselves for control. They converged on the brood chambers and jostled for position there. They struggled to climb on top of their rivals. The winners in these encounters seized their opponents’ legs and antennae and dragged them away.

I don’t know if it’s a childhood fascination I had with ants, but this depiction of the fictitious Trailhead Colony reads like a family drama set in a royal household.