This audiobook, read delightfully by Kristin Milward, is a wonderful overview of the insect world and the importance of all of them - even the annoying ones! Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson is a professor of conservation biology at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences located about 10 miles south of Oslo. She writes well, and with a nice sense of humor which isn't lost in the English translation that I listened to.
There are nine main chapters, the title of each being self-explanatory:
- Small Creatures, Smart Design: Insect Anatomy
- Six Legged Sex: Dating, Mating, Parenting
- Eat or be Eaten: Insects in the Food Chain
- Insects and Plants: a Never-Ending Race
- Busy Flies, Flavorsome Bugs: Insects in Our Food
- The Circle of Life - And Death: Insects as Janitors
- From Silk to Shellac: Industries of Insects
- Lifesavers, Pioneers, and Nobel Prize Winners: Insights From Insects
- Insects and us; What's Next?
Here are some quotes directly from the book description - which for once in a rare while is accurate and useful: "Most of us know that we would not have honey without honeybees, but without the pinhead-sized chocolate midge, cocoa flowers would not pollinate. No cocoa, no chocolate." "Blowfly larva can clean difficult wounds; flour beetle larva can digest plastic; several species of insects have been essential to the development of antibiotics." "There are insects that have ears on their knees, eyes on their penises, and tongues under their feet." What's not to love about a book like this?! I commend it heartily.
