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What's Bugging You?: A Fond Look at the Animals We Love to Hate
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What's Bugging You?: A Fond Look at the Animals We Love to Hate
176Hardcover
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Overview
What’s Bugging You? brings together fifty unforgettable stories from the celebrated nature writer and entomologist’s popular Richmond Times-Dispatch column. Evans has scoured Virginia’s wild places and returned with wondrous stories about the seventeen-year sleep of the periodical cicadas, moths that evade hungry bats by sensing echolocation signals, and the luminous language of light employed by fireflies. He also visits some not-so-wild places: the little mounds of upturned soil scattered along the margins of soccer fields are the dung beetle’s calling card.
What does the world look like to a bug? Evans explores insect vision, which is both better, and worse, than that of humans (they are capable of detecting ultraviolet light, but many cannot see the color red), pausing to observe that it is its wide-set forward-looking eyes that imbue the praying mantis with "personality." He is willing to defend such oft-maligned creatures as the earwig, the tent caterpillar, and the cockroachrevealed here as a valuable scavenger, food source for other animals, and even a pollinator, that spends more time grooming itself than it does invading human space.
Evans’s search for multilegged life takes him to an enchanting assortment of locations, ranging from gleaming sandy beaches preferred by a threatened tiger beetle to the shady, leaf-strewn forest floors where a centipede digs its brood chamberto a busy country road where Evans must dodge constant foot and vehicular traffic to photograph a spider wasp as its claims its paralyzed prey. His forays also provide the reader with a unique window on the cycles of nature. What Evans refers to as the FBIfungus, bacteria, insectsare the chief agents in decomposition and a vital part of regeneration. Evans also takes on many issues concerning humans’ almost always destructive interaction with insect life, such as excessive mowing and clearing of wood that robs wildlife of its food and habitat, as well as harmful bug zappers that kill everything but mosquitoes.
The reader emerges from this book realizing that even seemingly mundane forms of insect and spider life present us with unexpected beauty and fascinating lifestyles.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780813926988 |
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Publisher: | University of Virginia Press |
Publication date: | 03/07/2008 |
Pages: | 176 |
Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.25(d) |
Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ixPrologue 1
Home and Garden Bestiaries 3
Urban Assault Beetles and Other Pantry Pests 4
Letter from an Insect Gardener 6
Insects We Love to Hate: Greenhouse Stone Crickets 9
A Bounty of Boxelder Bugs 11
Reintroducing the Earwig 14
Roly-Polies: Pillbugs and Sowbugs 17
Magnificent Mantids 20
Cockroaches 101: A Primer 22
Ants: Movers and Shakers of the Natural World 26
The Black Widow 28
On Safari in Virginia 33
On Safari in Bryan Park 34
Exploring the Grassroot Jungles of Three Lakes Park 39
Tiny Game Hunting along the James River 42
Nighttime Bug-Watching at Pocahontas State Park 44
Wet and Wild 47
The Virginia BioBlitz: A Snapshot of Biodiversity 49
Marvels of Metamorphosis 53
Caterpillars: The Long, Dark Underbelly of Butterflies and Moths 54
America's First Insect: The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail 57
Some Caterpillars Lead "In Tents" Lives 58
Life on the Edge: Monarch Butterflies 60
Out ona Limb: Fall Webworms 62
For All You Moth-ers Out There! 63
Tales of Mulberries and Moths 65
Question Marks Punctuate the First Warm Days of Spring 67
Bodacious Beetles 71
The Age of Beetles 72
Eastern Hercules Beetles: Armed, but Not Dangerous 76
Beetles Must Bark Up the Right Tree for Winter 77
Counting Tigers on Virginia's Eastern Shore 79
Invasion of the Body Snatchers 83
Striking It Rich with Oil Beetles 86
Stings and Wings 91
A Tale of Predator and Prey 92
Carpenter Bees Lead Boring Lives 94
The Buzz on Bumblebees 97
The Giant Hornet, a Wasp's Wasp 100
The Paper Trail Starts Here 103
Mudslingers and Spider Killers 105
Bugs, Spiders, and Other Musings 109
Scratching That 17-Year Itch 110
And Along Came a Spider 113
For Doodlebugs, Life is the Pits 116
Daddy Longlegs 118
Dazzling Dragons and Damsels 122
Katydid, or Did She? 128
A "Bug Zapper Bites Man" Story 129
Dog-days Are Here Again! 131
What's in a Word? 133
The Eyes Have It 135
Bugs Matter! 137
Take a Pollinator to Lunch 139
Crayfishes, Crawfishes, and Mudbugs 141
Bugs in Focus: The Art of Making Little Things Big 143
Loving Lichens 147
Epilogue 151
Suggested Readings 153
Suggested Web Sites 155
Notes on the Original Articles 156
Index 159
What People are Saying About This
"Most of us may think we have few opportunities to see wildlife, especially in our own backyards. This book advances the charming proposition that expanding our definition of wildlife a little, to include 'bugs,' can open up beautiful possibilities." -- Steve NashUniversity of Richmond, author of Millipedes and Moon Tigers: Science and Policy in an Age of Extinction
Most of us may think we have few opportunities to see wildlife, especially in our own backyards. This book advances the charming proposition that expanding our definition of wildlife a little, to include 'bugs,' can open up beautiful possibilities. (Steve Nash, University of Richmond, author of Millipedes and Moon Tigers: Science and Policy in an Age of Extinction)
Most of us may think we have few opportunities to see wildlife, especially in our own backyards. This book advances the charming proposition that expanding our definition of wildlife a little, to include ‘bugs,’ can open up beautiful possibilities.