Dr. Eleanor has written a book on the most common ants in New York City (based on the work of many citizen scientists in and around the Big Apple participating in our School of Ants project).

After reading the book, we reckon you’ll know a little something about what species live in New York City.

We bet, however, that you haven’t stopped to contemplate exactly how many ants live in the city. We did some quick math based on our research in the medians and parks of the city and known areas of open, green space and determined that ants in Manhattan outnumber humans … wait for it… nearly 800 to 1! That’s roughly 1.2 BILLION ants in a city with a population of 1.6 million people.

In other words, when compared to the ants, humans are a small dot in a big universe of New York’s life.

Dive deeper into our calculations in this August 2013 post and do be sure to download your free copy of Dr. Eleanor’s Book of Common Ants of New York City today!