Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson

Extraordinary Insects

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{"strong"=>["*The Sunday Times Bestseller*"]}
{"strong"=>["‘Extraordinary Insects is a joy’ The Times“]}
{"strong"=>["A Sunday Times Nature Book of the Year 2019"]}
A journey into the weird, wonderful and truly astonishing lives of the small but mighty creatures who keep the world turning.
Out of sight, underfoot, unseen beyond fleeting scuttles or darting flights, insects occupy a hidden world, yet are essential to sustaining life on earth.
Insects influence our ecosystem like a ripple effect on water. They arrived when life first moved to dry land, they preceded — and survived — the dinosaurs, they outnumber the grains of sand on all the world’s beaches, and they will be here long after us.
Working quietly but tirelessly, they give us food, uphold our ecosystems, can heal our wounds and even digest plastic. They could also provide us with new solutions to the antibiotics crisis, assist in disaster zones and inspire airforce engineers with their flying techniques.
But their private lives are also full of fun, intrigue and wonder –musical mating rituals; house-hunting for armies of beetle babies; metamorphosing into new characters; throwing parties in fermenting sap; cultivating fungi for food; farming smaller species for honey dew and always ensuring that what is dead is decomposed, ready to become life once again.
Here, we will discover life and death, drama and dreams, all on a millimetric scale. Like it or not, Earth is the planet of insects, and this is their extraordinary story.
This book is currently unavailable
272 printed pages
Original publication
2019
Publication year
2019
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Quotes

  • Despandrihas quoted2 years ago
    And just so you know: insects don’t necessarily only have eyes on their head. One species of swallowtail butterfly has eyes on its penis! These help the male to position himself correctly during mating.
  • Despandrihas quoted2 years ago
    Long before human beings set foot on this planet, insects had already taken up agriculture and animal husbandry: termites grow fungus for food, while ants keep aphids as dairy cattle. Wasps were the first creatures to make paper from cellulose and caddisfly larvae were catching other creatures in net-like webs millions of years before we humans managed to weave our first fishing nets. Insects solved complicated problems of aerodynamics and navigation several million years ago, and learnt, if not how to tame fire, then at least how to tame light – even within their own bodies.
  • Despandrihas quoted2 years ago
    There are more than 200 million insects for every human being living on Planet Earth today. As you sit reading this sentence, between one and 10 quintillion insects are shuffling and crawling and flapping around on the planet, outnumbering the grains of sand on all the world’s beaches. Like it or not, they have you surrounded, because Earth is the planet of the insects.

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