The naturalist was recognized for his work on social behavior and pheromones in ants and as a champion of wildlife conservation.
His book “Half Earth – our planets fight for life” took on the challenge of how to save our planet – by protecting half thereof.
Edward Osborne Wilson died at age 92 (December 26) in Burlington, Massachusetts. Often lauded as Charles Darwin’s natural heir, Wilson was known for his research on ant behavior and biodiversity as well as for multiple books and international conservation efforts.
E.O. Wilson was born on June 10, 1929 in Birmingham, Alabama, according to an obituary by the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation. The fin of a spiny pinfish scratched Wilson’s right eye when he was fishing at age seven, permanently damaging his vision and depth perception, according to The Washington Post. In his 1994 memoir, Wilson wrote that “The attention of my surviving eye turned to the ground.”
At age 13, Wilson discovered the first colony of nonnative fire ants in the United States, reports Reuters, and he continued to catalog species of ants in Alabama throughout high school. Wilson earned his bachelor’s degree in biology in 1949 from the University of Alabama and a master’s a year later from the same institution, all the while continuing to pursue his interest in ants. “They are under the microscope among the most aesthetically pleasing of all insects,” Wilson wrote in his memoir, according to The New York Times.
