Preview: University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Il, 320 pp. Cloth: Isbn 978-0-226-71347-2, Usd 70.00; paper: Isbn 978-0-226-71348-9, Usd 28.00 Prof. Dr. Martin Heil, Dipartimento de Ingeniería Genética, CINVESTAV-Irapuato, Irapuato, CP. 36821, Guanajuato, México. E-mail: mheil@ira.cinvestav.mx Myrmecol. News 11: 78 (online 13 June 2008) Issn 1994-4136 (print), Issn 1997-3500 (online) Received 25 March 2008; accepted 25 March 2008 Hundreds of tropical plant species are the obligate hosts of ant colonies that nest within hollow branches, stems, or leaves. These so-called ant-plants (or myrmecophytes) were described by some of the earliest European ecologists who visited America (Cobo 1653, Aublet 1775 as cited in Wheeler 1942; Belt 1874). Even more plants secrete extrafloral nectar in order to attract defending ants from the vicinity (Bentley 1977, Heil 2008). It has long been discussed whether resident ant colonies of myrmecophytes – or ants that visit extrafloral nectaries – indeed function as an indirect defence (HEIL…