The Hot Blooded Insects: Strategies and Mechanisms of Thermoregulation

by Bernd Heinrich

Bernd Heinrich's widely praised Bumblebee Economics (Harvard, 1979) set a high standard for scientifically accurate yet gracefully articulate writing about nature's ingenious patterns, specifically thermoregulation. His Hot-Blooded Insects takes a giant step forward by presenting an overview of what is now known about thermoregulation in all of the major insect groups, offering new insights on physiology, ecology, and evolution. The book is richly illustrated by the author's exquisite sketches.
By describing the environmental opportunities and challenges faced by moths and butterflies, grasshoppers and locusts, dungball rollers and other beetles, a wide range of bees, and other insects, Heinrich explains their dazzling variety of physiological and behavioral adaptations to what, for them, is a world of violent extremes in temperature. These mechanisms are apparent only through precise observations, but the small body size of insects poses large technical difficulties in whole-animal experiments, engendering controversy about the reliability of the data thus derived. Emphasizing an experimental approach, Heinrich pinpoints where he believes studies have gone astray, describing in detail both groundbreaking experiments and those which leave a reasonable doubt" about the mechanism being interpreted. He reviews relevant work on the major taxa to show the underlying patterns that draw diversity together, opines on current controversies, and identifies questions that call for further study. Physiologists, ecologists, entomologists, and zoologists - in fact, all biologists - will be stimulated and challenged to further research by this masterly synthesis of a new field; it will also appeal to informed readers interested in general science.

601 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Bernd Heinrich was born in Germany and moved to Wilton, Maine as a child. He studied at the University of Maine and UCLA and is Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Vermont.

He is the author of many books including Winter World, Ravens in Winter, Mind of the Raven, and Why We Run. Many of his books focus on the natural world just outside the cabin door.

Heinrich has won numerous awards for his writing and is a world class ultra-marathon runner.

He spends much of the year at a rustic cabin that he built himself in the woods near Weld, Maine.