Overview

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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Reviews

Insects through the Seasons ...is a joyous romp through amazing-but-true natural history stories of what makes insects tick...Waldbauer's clear prose is full of fascinating detail, and it is a pleasure to read. His enthusiasm for his subject comes through loud and clear, a vital ingredient for interesting readers in what he has to say...Even for the professional entomologist, there is plenty that may well be new. There are vignettes here to delight any reader, including a great deal from Waldbauer's research naturally.--Francis Gilbert New Scientist

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)

Gilbert Waldbauer is one of those few lucky people paid to pursue their hobby. Reading Insects Through the Seasons , one discovers why he finds entomology endlessly fascinating...And as if his words, a blend of science and sentiment, were not enough to bring the subject to life, a cecropia moth flies across the bottom corner of the book as one flicks the pages. Here readers will discover strange stories and fantastic facts about the lives of insects and the many ways in which millions of years of evolution have equipped these organisms, arguably the most successful on our planet. -- George C. McGavin Nature

Author Information

Gilbert Waldbauer is Professor Emeritus of Entomology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

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