Bugs: Insects, Spiders, Centipedes, Millipedes, and Other Closely Related Arthropods - Hardcover

Lechner, Sheryl; Lowenstein, Frank

9781579120689: Bugs: Insects, Spiders, Centipedes, Millipedes, and Other Closely Related Arthropods

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1579120687 ISBN 13: 9781579120689

Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal, 1999

Creepy, crawly and ever present, bugs scare and fascinate people of all ages. This book magnifies the amazing habits and bizarre physical features of insects and other small creatures to brilliant proportions.

Their habits and habitats; their social lives, sex lives and life cycles; their sense, food, behavior; their enemies and allies are all covered.

Full-color spreads offer a macroscopic view of insects' tiny world and take readers into their survival-of-the-fittest environment. From the common ant to rare wood spiders, praying mantis' and monster dragon flies, the bugs are pictured in their natural habitats, hunting, courting and burrowing.

Lavishly illustrated with dazzling action shots, Bugs goes way beyond standard zoo photography in this huge 13 1/2"x13 1/2" format book - the same as Heavy Equipment and Pickup Trucks.

The text describes every detail - from mating habits and homes/hiding places to defense mechanisms - highlighting the most fascinating trait of each critter. A special box in each section gives significant scientific statistics: life span, time of the year that you might see them, size, species, genus and various other distinguishing characteristics.

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From the Inside Flap:

Insects are the most fascinating and successful creatures on earth. Some are beautiful, others gross, but all affect our lives in unseen ways. In Bugs, you'll discover details about their behavior, physical features and ways of life that are totally different from our own. It's like uncovering an alien nation in your backyard.

Bugs have an amazing ability to adapt and thrive in diverse environments. From brilliant camouflage to blood sucking fangs to complex flying techniques and seemingly endless variations of multifaceted legs, they can live underwater, at incredible altitudes and extreme temperatures, in jungles, forests or cities. They account for more than half of all living things on the planet and dominate global ecology.

Every insect has a head, thorax, abdomen, three pairs of joined legs and an exoskeleton, yet their class possesses the widest array of appearances and behaviors in the animal kingdom. Some have ears on their legs, others a tongue on each foot. Moths' antennae are used to smell for mates while ants taste with theirs.

You'll learn what is and is not an insect, how they evolved, how they help and harm humans, and the fascinating details of their lives from birth to death. Colorful features focus on each significant order of the insect world from giant dragonflies, feisty cockroaches, attacking praying mantises, and burrowing spiders to pinching earwigs, microscopic aphids, swimming beetles, fleshy caterpillars and elegant butterflies.

You'll also witness insects' remarkable defense and attack mechanisms like the Bombardier beetle which sprays a boiling hot liquid that burns an attacker's skin, or the Panamanian fishing net spider that throws a silken net over its prey, or stinging ants that bring paralyzed spiders into their anthills for winter feeding.

Many species have complex methods of communication. Moths excrete chemicals to attract mates, katydids rub their legs together like tiny screeching violins, fireflies flash Mother Nature's version of Morse code to attract mates, and honeybees use a intricate waggle dance to direct other bees to flower nectar.

Surprising similarities between the bug and human worlds come to light. The females of at least eight species of cockroaches nurse their young with protein rich excretions that their nymphs drink from an opening on the mother's abdomen. Job specialization allows an anthill to function like a disciplined corporation--each ant instinctively knowing their job and bustling about to complete each task.

Often mischaracterized as humanity's mortal enemies, insects play a vital role in the Earth's intricate ecosystem. They pollinate plants, fertilize soil and recycle waste. If the human race were to disappear, it would have little effect on the insect world, but if insects disappeared it would throw the world's ecological balance drastically--and fatally--off-kilter. They are older than the dinosaurs and just as enthralling, and their continued existence offers the opportunity to look closely at their actions and interactions.

In Bugs, you'll get an up-close look at the intricate and intriguing world of insects that surrounds us and often remains just out of view.

About the Author:

Sheryl Lechner has been a freelance writer and editor since the 1980s. Her profiles and feature articles deal with topics such as women's rights, film, health, and the environment and have appeared in such publications, as Sierra, Audubon, Reform Judaism, the Boston Globe and Berkshire Living. She has worked as a reporter at three newspapers and served as a political and press staffer for city council members and a governor. Her original screenplay The Lobster Trap deals with issues of integrity and entrapment in the world of politics.

Frank Lowenstein's first published writing was a review of activist singer U. Utah Philips’s 1982 concert in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has since published dozens of articles on environmental, economic, and scientific issues. He serves as Director of Forest Health Programs for The Nature Conservancy’s Global Forest Partnership. He shares a home in western Massachusetts with co-editor Sheryl Lechner and their three sons.

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