An ideal choice for anyone who wants to learn about insects and their relatives is the new book, Bugs Rule!, published in late 2013 by Princeton University Press. It’s so easy and interesting to read that you find yourself well along into the book in what deceivingly feels like just a few minutes.
The authors, Whitney Cranshaw and Richard Redak, are both professors who have taught introductory entomology courses for non-science majors who usually lack much knowledge about the animals classified as Arthropoda. This grouping (“arthropod” is Greek for “jointed-foot”) consists primarily of insects.
Thus most entomology text books focus on them and give short shrift to non-insect members, such as spiders, millipedes, centipedes, and crustaceans. But many people have lots of questions about these other kinds of critters that are fairly commonly seen around homes, so the authors discuss these insect relatives in detail as well.
The book begins by explaining what kinds of characteristics define an organism as an arthropod. For example, if you cut one of these critters through the center from head to tail, the two halves would be a mirror image of one another.
The authors then go on to tell you about the diversity and abundance of these unique animals and the ecologically important roles they play in our environment.
Insects alone number almost a million known species and comprise over one-half of all kinds of life known to occur on Earth. But it’s thought that there may be four-to-five million species altogether, with at least 80% not yet identified.
An abundance of arthropods are minute and live within the soil. Based upon a study done in an English pasture during November 1943, it’s estimated that there are about 2.5 billion arthropods per hectare.
Think about this for a moment. Every time you see bulldozers pushing soil around for new development or even when you yourself use machinery to till the soil in your garden—soil that you may have thought was lifeless—innumerable lives are being destroyed.
Most people would say that it doesn’t make any difference, but of course it does. Those organisms would not be there if it didn’t!
Moving beyond the first chapter of the book, we read about the external features of insects and learn of the internal functioning of arthropod bodies, then move on to arachnids (spiders, mites, scorpions, and other eight-legged “wonders”, as the authors call them); the myriapods (“many feet”—millipedes and centipedes); and crustaceans (“crust covered”, such as lobsters, shrimp, and pillbugs).
In the remaining chapters, which comprise most of the book, the authors delve into the details of the various orders (groupings) of insects. Along with what kind of habitat a particular grouping of insects inhabits and what kinds of food they eat, you are also provided with answers to questions many folks may wonder about: How do insects survive freezing temperatures? Do insects feel pain? There’s even an Asian recipe for cooking giant water bugs!
The book is chockfull of photographs in full color which means you will recognize and be able to identify many insects and other arthropods that you’ve seen yourself.
I can’t praise this book enough. Bugs Rule! is hard cover and expensive, but it’s worth every cent for the wealth of information and fascinating reading that it provides.
Naturalist Marlene A. Condon is the author/photographer of The Nature-friendly Garden: Creating a Backyard Haven for Plants, Wildlife, and People (Stackpole Books; information at www.marlenecondon.com). If you have a question about plants or animals, or gardening in a nature-friendly manner, send it to [email protected] and please watch for an answer in this paper.
