Waldbauer (Entomology/Univ. of Illinois) loves bugs, and he wants
you to love them, too. Or at least to be fascinated enough to stop
and look before squashing them underfoot. This thoroughly
gratifying survey of that most successful animal group (now 400
million years old) is given both temporal and Darwinian
perspectives. Starting with the optimistic swarm of spring,
Waldbauer paints the landscape of each season, filling it with
every manner of creature (though insects take center stage) and
describing their evolutionary talents: how they find mates, how
they find food, how they avoid being found as food for others. He
never has to stretch for the fantastic or sensational example, for
the insect world is one long, strange parade of curiosities:
critters with ears on their legs, teeth on their genitals, the
smell of carbona on their breath. Waldbauer gives the scoop on the
tricks of a dead leaf butterfly, cracks the code of the cricket's
chirp, tends bar for a boozing moth, shares the satin bowerbird's
obsession with the color blue. In the process, he puts the entire
ecological picture into context - the integrated community of
interdependent organisms, in which we humans have no reason to feel
superior. Without the pollinating and scavenging talents of our
multilegged friends, we never would have made it here in the first
place. And Waldbauer never skirts the rarefied stuff, giving the
exceedingly complex notion of natural selection, for example, the
elasticity it deserves and rarely gets, somehow putting it across
with the clarity of an easy reader. Waldbauer's wisdom is served up
like a tantalizing tray of hors d'oeuvres, none of which will
likely be declined. (Kirkus Reviews)
They appeared on earth 400 million years ago, long before the first
reptile, bird, or mammal. They make up about 75 percent of the 1.2
million currently known species of animals. As many as 30,000 of
them coexist and interact in one square yard of the top inch of a
forest's soil. The unparalleled success of insects is the story
told in this highly entertaining book. How do these often tiny but
indefatigable creatures do it? Gilbert Waldbauer pursues this
question from hot springs and Himalayan slopes to roadsides and
forests, scrutinizing insect life in its many manifestations.
Insects through the Seasons will educate and charm the expert, the
passionate amateur, and the merely curious about our most populous
and tenacious neighbors.
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