Edward Wilson, controversial biologist, is dead

ONE DAY in 1936 Edward Wilson, a budding seven-year-old naturalist, was out fishing. He hooked a pinfish, which has sharp spines down its back. He pulled too hard. As the fish came out of the water, one of its spines went into his right eye. Keen not to cut short a day outdoors, he soldiered on without going to hospital. As a result, he lost most of the sight in that eye.This loss of vision was not the only reason he turned from vertebrates to ants. But it gave him a nudge: “I noticed butterflies and ants more than other kids did, and took an interest in them automatically.” A long and productive career saw him write hundreds of papers and publish dozens of books, collect two Pulitzer prizes, and make fundamental contributions to ecology, conservation and evolutionary biology.