In Splendid Isolation

The first time I met Edward O. Wilson was in an Amsterdam hotel. Slumped in a sofa in the lobby, he allows himself, somewhat reluctantly, to be interviewed. Reluctantly, because, he says, he is very tired. He has just flown in from Harvard University, where he is in the middle of teaching a major course, to be awarded an honorary membership of the Netherlands Entomological Society. He has also just delivered a long lecture on ants. And as if the éminence grise of myrmecology needs any more excuses for making a somewhat fatigued impression after all that, he adds that he has just put the finishing touches to the definitive monograph of the American species of the ant genus Pheidole: 606 species, more than half of which Wilson himself discovered, illustrated with over 5,000 line drawings of his own hand. Anyway, he says, fixing me with his one good eye and an off-centre smile, ‘Why don’t you just ask me your first question, and then we’ll see when I collapse.’