DO FIRE ANTS FIGHT FIRES?

In the wake of Do Lizards Eat Ice Cream? (2020), another round of questions and sometimes-surprising answers spotlighting parallels between human and wild animal behavior.

No (in response to the titular query), but fire ants do make fires (“in a way”) by stinging prey or unwary passersby. Similarly, damselfish do farm red algae on reefs, moles don’t dig subway tunnels (but they can dig burrows like anything), and so on. Though not as suspenseful as it might be if each question and its answer weren’t on the same spread, this fresh dive into animal behavior does offer amusing cartoon views of creatures in human(ish) clothes and settings as well as plenty of crowd-pleasing bits: “Do tapirs deliver packages?” “YES! (Sort of) South American tapirs travel long distances, delivering seed-filled poop packages as they go.” “Do frogs act in movies?” “NO! But spotted litter frogs do sometimes act…like they’re dead.” The mix of carefully distinguished fact and fancy makes the informational load easy to digest, if a little on the light side, and as in the previous book, the topic is tossed out to readers at the end—“What jobs do you have at home or at school?” (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Doesn’t dig all that deep but may fire up an interest in further investigations.