Insect Behavior

Insect Behavior is the second edition of the text that for thirty years served as the fundamental introduction to a field of study that has been growing enormously. Today, new technologies and understandings are allowing questions to be shaped―and answered―in ways that once could not have been envisioned. However, massive new information also can overwhelm and obscure the broader perspectives needed to put new discoveries into context. Thus, the times fairly demand that students and non-specialists seek a wider understanding of diverse proximate and ultimate forces that cause animals to behave as they do.

This book provides that opportunity. The authors strike a balance between modern developments and historical insights, between new examples and old, between empirical work and theory, and between pertinent conclusions and the dynamic field and laboratory experiences from which such discoveries arise. Considerably updated and expanded, this edition includes 26 case studies, as well as 45 new color plates and 173 figures (over 40% of them new) with detailed legends that add richness to the well-written, accessible text.

Like the course that originally inspired it, Insect Behavior will find utility at the graduate and senior undergraduate level for college and university students. However, although some background in entomology or animal behavior is helpful, an in-depth knowledge is not a prerequisite. Thus, the book also invites comparative psychologists, science educators, and all others with an interest in the physically small but inestimably important creatures that comprise three-quarters of all animal life on our planet.

Robert W. Matthews is a Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia. An insect behavior specialist, his scientific publications number over 165 research articles. Janice R. Matthews is a writer and educator with a broad background in the biological sciences. The two scientists have collaborated in entomological field studies in Australia, South and Central America, and the U.S.A. and have co-authored a number of technical and popular articles and books. They have six grown children and a Labradoodle.