Sundström, L.

Rainer Rosengren

One of the pioneers in ant research, Rainer Rosengren, passed away on February 4th, a couple of months before his 70th birthday. Rosengren’s work focused on red wood ants and his work on route fidelity, visual memory and recruitment behaviour in these ants has gained much attention among students of social insects. A lesser known part of his literary production concerns humans as biological creatures. In this vein he wrote several essays on ethology and evolutionary biology in a true Darwinian spirit during the 1960s. These essays build on a Lorenzian tradition and picture him as a persuasive writer eager to engage in debates. Indeed, these essays brought into focus issues that later were championed by E.O. Wilson and set off the sociobiology controversy.

Open access, licensed under CC BY 4.0. © 2004 The Author(s).

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