Helpful Hints from joeeze: How one of the world's great ant experts deals with ants in the kitchen

"At 72, Bert Hölldobler, a professor of life sciences at Arizona State University and a professor emeritus at the University of Würzburg in Germany, is one of the world's great ant experts. Along with his collaborator, E. O. Wilson, Dr. Hölldobler won a Pulitzer Prize in 1991 for "The Ants." The two wrote a second book in 2008, "The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance and Strangeness of Insects."

You could look it up.

Can't be bothered?

I hear you: let's cut to the chase, from Claudia Dreifus's June 16, 2009 New York Times Science section Q&A with Hölldobler.

Q. Do you call an exterminator when ants infest your kitchen?

A. No, I don’t mind them. Listen, if you have ants in the house, you take a wet towel and detergent and you wipe over their trail. Do this a couple of times and they’ll stay out. People come up after speeches and say, “But what can we do, we have ants?” I say, “Buy a magnifying glass and enjoy watching them.”