This is an animal novel of « fiction philosophy » writen by Bernard Werber appear in 1991.

Jonathan Wells receives the house of his uncle biologist Edmond Wells, where he settled with his family. Gradually, it will update its studies and revolutionary discoveries on ants by venturing into the cellar, despite his uncle who him to deter it in a letter. He also discovered a riddle, the key to the plot: « How can you build four equilateral triangles with six matches? « . However, one day he will disappear and, gradually, other people trying to help him too. Meanwhile, an ant colony lives his life in a town called Bel ant-o-kan. 327th, a male ant warns the queen that his group has been decimated by a mysterious force. He meets 103 683rd, asexual ant. After a strange dream in which Edmond addresses Jonathan’s wife, she decide to go search her husband.
She disappears in turn …
The mystery deepens when a gentleman called Gougne seeking to enter the house of Jonathan to regain some Encyclopaedia relative and absolute knowledge written by Edmond Wells.
The father and mother were both gone, the police are notified and an investigation is opened. It is conducted by the Commissioner Bilsheim and Galin inspector, two specialists strange business. The Galin inspector decides to explore the cave accompanied by eight firefighters, who obviously are lost in their turn … So, without kin, Nicolas is brought to orphenage. It’s in watching TV it falls on the presentation of Professor Leduc, in which he recognizes Mr. Gougne. Nicolas understands that there was a relationship between this encyclopedia and the vanishing of his parents, and has the intuition that they are still alive; So he ran away from the orphanage to join them. He returns to his house and resolves the riddle about the triangle and the matches. Late, we discover all people who are down into the cellar are alive. They are in this room..jained, which is actually a former Protestant hidden, buried underground. We discover that the device preventing the return was set up by Jonathan, under the direction of Edmond Wells, who also developed a machine to understand and communicate with ants, in the form of a mini robot ant, and with the surname of Dr. Livingstone. A colony of eighteen millions of ants lives above them, the city of Bel-o-kan, with which they communicate used this gadget.

The other side, I mean about the ants, we discover how they do to protect their anthill.  Ants finally reached the world of « guardians of the end of the world »(Their living dreaming place) seems to them as exotic. It’s really difficult to sum up beacause, there are many and many adventures as Ants wars, nuptial flights, beetle attack and the main adventure: the secret weapon of the enemy ants armies (that decimated an numerous group of ants in less than 2 seconds)

  I advise you this book.. In fact,this trilogy.