Preview: W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 576 pp., ISBN-10: 0393067041, ISBN-13: 978-0393067040, Price: € 41.99 Dr. Jon Nicholas Seal, Evolution, Verhalten und Genetik, Biologie I, Universitätsstraße 31, Universität Regensburg, D-93040 Regensburg, Germany. E-mail:Jon.Seal@biologie.uni-regensburg.de Myrmecol. News 12: 22 (online 24 October 2008) Issn 1994-4136 (print), Issn 1997-3500 (online) Received 22 September 2008; accepted 25 September 2008 Ecologists have long realized and appreciated that the world consists of hierarchies. Matter is composed of atoms, atoms build molecules such as Dna, which comprises genes, genes prescribe proteins, proteins form cells, cells form tissues, tissues form organs, which eventually form multicellular organisms. However, a level of organization relatively underappreciated outside of many biological circles is that of the so-called superorganism, which are entities composed of groups of individual organisms that interact and cooperate and take on behavioral and growth characteristics of single organisms. Indeed in the past century or so, there has been…