- 304 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
“A book that draws us in to the strange beauty of what we so often run away from.” — Robin Ince, author of The Importance of Being Interested
In this eye-opening and entertaining work of popular science in the spirit of The Mosquito, Entangled Life, and The Book of Eels, a leading behavioural ecologist transforms our understanding of wasps, exploring these much-maligned insects’ secret world, their incredible diversity and complex social lives, and revealing how they hold our fragile ecosystem in balance.
Everyone worries about the collapse of bee populations. But what about wasps? Deemed the gangsters of the insect world, wasps are winged assassins with formidable stings. Conduits of Biblical punishment, provokers of fear and loathing, inspiration for horror movies: wasps are perhaps the most maligned insect on our planet.
But do wasps deserve this reputation?
Endless Forms opens our eyes to the highly complex and diverse world of wasps. Wasps are 100 million years older than bees; there are ten times more wasp species than there are bees. There are wasps that spend their entire lives sealed inside a fig; wasps that turn cockroaches into living zombies; wasps that live inside other wasps. There are wasps that build citadels that put our own societies to shame, marked by division of labor, rebellions and policing, monarchies, leadership contests, undertakers, police, negotiators, and social parasites. Wasps are nature’s most misunderstood insect: as predators and pollinators, they keep the planet’s ecological balance in check. Wasps are nature’s pest controllers; a world without wasps would be just as ecologically devastating as losing the bees, or beetles, or butterflies.
Wasps are diverse and beautiful by every measure, and they are invaluable to planetary health, Professor Sumner reminds us; we’d do well to appreciate them as much as their cuter cousins, the bees.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Introduction
- Part One: The Problem with Wasps
- Part Two: The Obsessions of Wasp Whisperers
- Part Three: How to Have a Social Life
- Part Four: Playing the Game
- Part Five: Dinner with Aristotle
- Part Six: Nature’s Pest Controllers
- Part Seven: The Secret Pollinators
- Last Word: A Future with Wasps
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Index
- Photo Section
- About the Author
- Copyright
- About the Publisher