Enter a hidden world of snail killers, silly names and crazy sex in The Secret Life of Flies. Entomolologist Erica McAlister dispels many common misconceptions and reveals how truly amazing, exotic and important these creatures really are. From hungry herbivores and precocious pollinators to robberflies, danceflies and the much maligned mosquito, McAlister describes the different types of fly, their unique and often unusual characteristics, and the unpredictable nature of their daily life. She travels from the drawers of wonder at the Natural History Museum, to piles of poo in Ethiopia, via underground caves, smelly latrines and the English country garden. She discovers flies without wings, rotating genitalia and the terrible hairy fly, while pausing along the way to consider today's key issues of conservation, taxonomy, forensic entomology and climate change. Combining her deep knowledge and love of flies with a wonderful knack for storytelling, Erica McAlister allows us to peer - amazed and captivated - into the secret life of flies.

From the best-selling illustrator of Flip-a-Feather, Mix-a-Mutt, Flip-o-saurus, and Flip-o-storic comes another book with charming artwork and die-cut pages for flip-and-flop fun ― this time with insects! Build-a-Bug lets you create wacky combinations of ten types of insects, including a curious beetle, a climbing caterpillar, and a buzzing honey bee. Each flap includes a fun fact about the pictured species, and inside the front cover is a chart showing the relative sizes of the insects featured, from the ant to the praying mantis.

The go-to photographic guide to all the damselflies and dragonflies recorded in Europe, including the Macaronesian Islands and western Turkey Europe's Dragonflies is a comprehensive, lavishly illustrated and beautifully designed photographic field guide to the damselflies and dragonflies of Europe. Written by two well-travelled experts, the book covers all 140 resident and vagrant species recorded, focussing on the field identification of adult insects. Concise species profiles highlight key identification features and provide information on behaviour, habitat preferences, distribution, flight periods, status and conservation. Other sections cover identification tips, conservation status and legislation. Presenting an unsurpassed selection of images of the highest quality, this is the go-to guide for anyone wishing to know more about these amazing and fascinating insects. Comprehensive coverage of every species of damselfly and dragonfly recorded in Europe Stunning colour plates showing males, females, immatures, colour forms, subspecies and typical habitat for every species Over 1,200 superb photographs, supplemented with illustrations of fine details Detailed profiles for the 140 resident and vagrant species Unique comparison plates for difficult groups Easy to use by beginners and experts alike, avoiding technical terms

This is a new addition to Glassberg's celebrated Butterflies (and Others) through Binoculars series of field guides. As such, it rivals his earlier--and highly popular--Field and Finding Guide to Butterflies of the Boston-New York-Washington Region by providing an intensive focus on the butterflies and best butterflying sites for another highly populated and heavily traveled region. This time, the terrain in question is the state of Florida--one of the leading tourist destinations in the world. Butterfly enthusiasts, nature lovers, and curious general readers will perhaps be surprised to learn that Florida's specialized butterfly fauna is wholly unique within the United States. And until the appearance of this volume, there has been no adequate field guide for the butterflies of this region. Thus this guide's advantages are many and varied: it identifies butterflies as photographed throughout the state; it simplifies identification by limiting the species considered to those occurring exclusively in Florida; it covers several fascinating tropical species that can be found in both Florida and the Caribbean; and it lastly provides--with unprecedented detail--much useful data on Florida's flight times and abundances.

A stunningly illustrated natural history of spiders Spiders are among the most versatile creatures on the planet, inhabiting six of the seven continents and thriving in environments ranging from deserts and rain forests to Arctic tundra and cities. Spiders of the World is a captivating look at these wondrously adaptable and endlessly intriguing arachnids, written by six of the world's leading experts on spiders. This stunningly illustrated natural history features a wealth of spectacular color photos and covers a breathtaking array of spider species from around the globe, describing their behaviors, characteristics, and remarkable evolutionary adaptations. An incisive and engaging introduction provides an invaluable overview of the world's spiders, and is followed by in-depth profiles spanning more than 100 spider families and presented taxonomically. Each profile is organized phylogenetically and includes beautiful photography to illustrate various species within the family. There are also distribution maps, tables of essential facts, and commentaries highlighting diverse aspects of spider biology, making Spiders of the World an indispensable volume for anyone who wants to learn more about these marvelous creatures. Provides a richly illustrated look at spiders of all shapes and sizes from around the world Features hundreds of color photos and diagrams Spans more than 100 spider families and covers an array of different species Explores spider behavior, attributes, biology, and evolution Includes distribution maps, tables of essential facts, informative commentaries, and more Engages and educates readers about the unique natural history of spiders

Insektopedie lê die betowering en ryke verskeidenheid van die wêreld van insekte bloot. Dit deurgrond hul fassinerende gedrag en biologie – van paring en broeigedrag, metamorfose en beweging tot sig, reuk, gehoor en hul aanpassings by hitte en koue.

’n Hoofstuk oor superorganismes ondersoek die merkwaardige verskynsel van sosiale gemeenskappe; ’n ander een dek die kritieke rol wat dié diertjies speel om die fyn balans van lewe op ons planeet in stand te hou.

Die boek sluit af met ’n 60-bladsy geïllustreerde veldgids wat die meeste insekordes en hul belangrikste families beskryf. Voorheen as Inseklopedie van Suider-Afrika gepubliseer, maar die nuwe uitgawe is nou grondig hersien en herontwerp, met die nuutste inligting, ’n uitgebreide ID-seksie en ’n paar honderd nuwe foto’s.

This is the ideal guide for anyone wanting to start beekeeping and a revered reference book for experienced beekeepers. It includes information on all you need to know, including how to avoid swarms, plan requeening, or provide the colony with winter stores. It features key information on Varroa. It is copiously illustrated throughout. Fully revised and updated, this new edition of "Guide to Bees and Honey" also presents expert advice for readers who plan to maintain a few hives for personal recreational use, as well as those who want to expand an existing colony into a commercial venture.

Bill Turnbull had no intention of becoming a beekeeper. But when he saw an ad for beekeeping classes after a swarm of bees landed in his suburban backyard it seemed to be a sign. Despite being stung on the head twice at his first hands-on beekeeping class, Turnbull found himself falling in love with the fascinating, infuriating honeybee.

As a new beekeeper, Turnbull misplaced equipment for months, got stung more times and in more places than he cares to remember, and once even lost some bees up a chimney. But he kept at it, with a ready sense of humor and Zen-like acceptance of every mishap. And somehow, along the way, he learned a great deal about himself and the world around him.

"Confessions of a Bad Beekeeper" chronicles Turnbull 's misadventures (and brief moments of triumph) in the curious world of backyard beekeeping and also highlights both the threat to our bee population and what we can do to help these vital little creatures do their wonderful work.

National Wildlife Federation's new all-photographic field guide to North American insects, spiders, and related species, is the most up-to-date of its kind, and lets both amateur and expert naturalists identify more than 940 species quickly and accurately. More than 2,000 close-up color photographs by leading nature photographers reveal the field marks that distinguish each creature, and the clear and concise text that accompanies each image describes the range, habitat, life cycle, and behavior. Budding entomologists will be inspired to explore further with the detailed information on starting a collection, planting an arthropod garden, keeping insects and spiders in captivity, and learning the techniques of macro photography. The unique waterproof cover makes it ideal for use outdoors.

London's Natural History Museum holds the oldest and most important entomology collection in the world - with over 34 million insect and arachnid specimens. Interesting Insects showcases the weird, wonderful, and often surprisingly beautiful world of bugs, from shimmering stag beetles to dazzling dragonflies. For each stunning specimen there is a close-up photograph and accompanying text describing its appearance, lifestyle, distribution and size, together with its key characteristics.

The fascinating story of the urban honeybee garden on the roof of the legendary Waldorf Astoria hotel. The tale of Honeybee Hotel begins over one hundred years ago, with the Astor family and the birth of the iconic Manhattan landmark, the magnificent Waldorf Astoria. In those early days the posh art deco masterpiece had its own rooftop garden for guests to enjoy. Fast-forward to the turn of the twenty-first century, and we meet executive chef David Garcelon, the creative genius behind the idea of restoring the celebrated rooftop garden. His vision included six hives containing some 300,000 honeybees, which would provide a unique flavor for his restaurant's culinary masterpieces. Yet Garcelon's dream was much grander than simply creating a private chefs' garden: he wanted the honeybee garden to serve as a bond among people. Soon the staff of the hotel, the guests, local horticulturists, and beekeeping experts formed a community around the bees and the garden, which not only raised vegetables, herbs, and honey to be served in the hotel but also provided healthy food to the homeless shelter across the street at St. Bartholomew's Church. Through her meticulous research and interviews with culinary glitterati, entomologists, horticulturists, and urban beekeepers, Leslie Day leads us on a unique insider's tour of this little-known aspect of the natural world of New York City. She familiarizes us with the history of the architectural and cultural gem that is the Waldorf and introduces us to the lives of Chef Garcelon and New York City's master beekeeper, Andrew Cote. Day, an urban naturalist and incurable New Yorker, tells us of the garden's development, shares delectable honey-based recipes from the hotel's chefs and mixologist, and relates the fate of the hotel in the wake of the Waldorf's change of ownership. During our journey, we learn quite a bit about apiaries, as well as insect and flower biology, through the lives of the bees that travel freely around the city in search of nectar, pollen, and resin. This absorbing narrative unwraps the heart within the glamour of one of the world's most beloved cities, while assuring us that nature can thrive in the ultimate urban environment when its denizens care enough to foster that connection.

Sally Coulthard explores the miraculous world of the earthworm, the modest little creature without whom life as we know it would not be possible. For Charles Darwin - who estimated every acre of land contained 53,000 earthworms - the humble earthworm was the most important creature on the planet. And yet, most people know almost nothing about these little engineers of the earth. We take them for granted but, without the earthworm, the world's soil would be barren, and our gardens, fields and farms wouldn't be able to grow the food and support the animals we need to survive. Sally Coulthard provides a complete profile of the earthworm by answering fifty questions about these wiggling creatures, from 'What happens if I chop a worm in half?' to 'Would humans survive if worms went extinct?' Fascinating and beautifully illustrated, The Book of the Earthworm offers a feast of quirky facts and practical advice about the world's most industrious - but least understood - invertebrate.

Entomologist Justin O. Schmidt is on a mission. Some say it's a brave exploration, others shake their heads in disbelief. His goal? To compare the impacts of stinging insects on humans, mainly using himself as the gauge. In The Sting of the Wild, the colorful Dr. Schmidt takes us on a journey inside the lives of stinging insects, seeing the world through their eyes as well as his own. He explains how and why they attack and reveals the powerful punch they can deliver with a small venom gland and a "sting," the name for the apparatus that delivers the venom. We learn which insects are the worst to encounter and why some are barely worth considering. The Sting of the Wild includes the complete Schmidt Sting Pain Index, published here for the first time. In addition to a numerical ranking of the agony of each of the eighty-three stings he's sampled so far (from below 1 to an excruciatingly painful 4), Schmidt describes them in prose worthy of a professional wine critic: "Looks deceive. Rich and full-bodied in appearance, but flavorless" and "Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail embedded in your heel." Schmidt explains that, for some insects, stinging is used for hunting: small wasps, for example, can paralyze huge caterpillars and then lay their eggs inside so that their larvae can feast within. Others are used to kill competing insects, even members of their own species. Humans usually experience stings as defensive maneuvers used by insects to protect their nest mates. With colorful descriptions of each venom's sensation and a story that leaves you tingling with awe, The Sting of the Wild's one-of-a-kind style will fire your imagination.

The second edition of Richard Lewington's pocket guide to the butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland Presented in an accessible, easy-to-use format, this is an ideal guide for both beginners and more experienced enthusiasts. It includes more than 600 superb illustrations of all the life stages of each species, together with beautiful artworks of the butterflies in their natural settings and pertinent species information, distribution maps and life history charts. The second edition features a new, illustrated 'at-a-glance' identification guide, updated distribution maps and species accounts, and new spreads and artwork for the Cryptic Wood White and Scarce Tortoiseshell.

PLAY AND LEARN: learn about bees and biodiversity as you play this family strategy game for age 6+, based on traditional Mancala SCREEN-FREE FUN for two players aged 6 and up SOMETHING TO TREASURE: this is a quality product made to last, with bespoke illustration and sleek and stylish packaging EXPLORE THE ENTIRE SERIES: this game is one of our nature games, others include Bird Bingo, I Saw It First! Ocean, and many more Buzz the bees to the flowers to collect pollen and then back to the hive to make honey for feeding and growing your very own bee colony. The player with the largest colony wins! Based on the ancient gameplay of mancala, Beehive Mancala is a fun strategy game for adults and children aged 6+. Includes facts on the bees and flowers featured, plus details on the honey-making process and the importance of bees from the beekeeper at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London, UK.

We think of bees as being among the busiest workers in the garden, admiring them for their productivity. But amid their buzzing, they are also great communicators and unusual dancers. As Karl von Frisch (1886-1982) discovered during World War II, bees communicate the location of food sources to each other through complex circle and waggle dances. For centuries, beekeepers had observed these curious movements in hives, and others had speculated about the possibility of a bee language used to manage the work of the hive. But it took von Frisch to determine that the bees' dances communicated precise information about the distance and direction of food sources. As Tania Munz shows in this exploration of von Frisch's life and research, this important discovery came amid the tense circumstances of the Third Reich.The Dancing Bees draws on previously unexplored archival sources in order to reveal von Frisch's full story, including how the Nazi government in 1940 determined that he was one-quarter Jewish, revoked his teaching privileges, and sought to prevent him from working altogether until circumstances intervened. In the 1940s, bee populations throughout Europe were facing the devastating effects of a plague (just as they are today), and because the bees were essential to the pollination of crops, von Frisch's research was deemed critical to maintaining the food supply of a nation at war. The bees, as von Frisch put it years later, saved his life. Munz not only explores von Frisch's complicated career in the Third Reich, she looks closely at the legacy of his work and the later debates about the significance of the bee language and the science of animal communication. This first in-depth biography of von Frisch paints a complex and nuanced portrait of a scientist at work under Nazi rule. The Dancing Bees will be welcomed by anyone seeking to better understand not only this chapter of the history of science but also the peculiar waggles of our garden visitors.

A handy, pocket-sized guide to 220 of the world's spiders, Gem Spiders is the perfect introduction to these 'creepy-crawlies' There are approximately 35,000 known species of spider in the world, but it is estimated that the true number in existence could be nearer 70,000. They occur everwhere naturally and, because of their sharp bite and venom, they are one of the most successful groups of animal. Each entry includes: A photograph of the spider and details of any distinguishing features which may help identification Information on size, web, habitat, distribution range and the times of the year when it is most likely to be spotted An icon shows the potency of each spider's venom Each species is sorted by family and illustrated with a symbol, enabling you to quickly find what you are looking for. There is a detailed introduction which covers aspects of spiders' natural history, their relatives, anatomy, the production and uses of silk. From the Goliath Tarantula to the patu digua, this photographic guide is the perfect introduction for those who want to learn about these fascinating creatures.

Sasol Eerste Veldgids tot Insekte van Suider-Afrika bied ’n fassinerende blik op die insekte van die streek. Met behulp van volkleurfoto’s en maklik leesbare teks, sal die beginner en ontluikende natuurliefhebber die meer algemene insekgroepe in Suider-Afrika kan identifiseer, kan vasstel waar hulle voorkom, en meer te wete kom oor hul gedrag en ongewone eienskappe.

Butterflies are a crucial part of the ecosystem. Unfortunately, many butterfly species are dying off in record numbers. Butterfly exhibits serve an important role. In these enclosed spaces, we can learn more about these winged creatures and what we can do to help them. Created in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, this Spanish-translated Smithsonian Informational Text builds reading skills while engaging students' curiosity about STEAM topics through real-world examples. Packed with factoids and informative sidebars, it features a hands-on STEAM challenge that is perfect for use in a makerspace and teaches students every step of the engineering design process. Make STEAM career connections with career advice from actual Smithsonian employees working in STEAM fields. Discover engineering innovations that solve real-world problems with content that touches on all aspects of STEAM: Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, and Math!

This new pocket guide covers both common and interesting insects from South Africa, making it possible to identify a wide range of local species.

Some 431 insects are featured, many of which we may have spotted in our houses and gardens. Each is described with its key identification features, a colour photograph and distribution map.

An illustrated quick reference guide on the inside front and back covers makes it quick and easy to navigate to the right insect group.

Insects have a greater impact on human lives and livelihoods than any other group of organisms. This guide will help you to identify insects that are frequently encountered, very striking or ecologically important in the region. Compact and easy-to-use, it features more than 400 of the interesting and diverse insect groups found in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.

Full-colour photographs of all featured species are accompanied by concise text giving key identification features for each group.

Travelers are buzzing about apitourism--or "bee tourism"--as an opportunity to get close to bees and learn about the ecology and industry they support. Apitours invite visitors to see what takes place inside a hive, taste fresh honey and observe its journey from comb to bottle. Apitourists explore "bee culture" through diverse activities--watching films, creating art, building "bee hotels," sampling mead, learning to plant pollinator gardens and documenting species in the wild. This guide presents an educational overview of apitourism, with an exploration of the fascinating world of bees and the sometimes controversial issues surrounding them.