Beetle Battles: One Scientist's Journey of Adventure and Discovery

by Douglas J. Emlen

Join scientist Doug Emlen on his quest to find out why an elusive type of beetle grows weapons that are enormous for its body size.

What does it take to be a scientist in the field?

Doug Emlen is a scientist. He studies beetles.

Specifically, he studies the evolution of beetle weapons--how their horns and armor change to better suit them in different environments.

This book starts with a mystery: Doug wanted to know why a particular type of beetle developed a massive evolutionary weapon. He wanted to know how these changes happened and what advantages these enormous weapons gave the tiny dung beetles.

So, he went to visit.

Part travel diary and part scientific exploration, Beetle Battles takes you deep into the South American rainforest to monitor beetles in their own habitat. Packed with color photographs, extensive back matter, and entertaining anecdotes, this book will make beetle fans out of all its young readers.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, War, Nature, Animals

176 pages, Hardcover

First published December 24, 2019

About the author

Douglas J. Emlen is a professor at the University of Montana. He is the recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering from the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, multiple research awards from the National Science Foundation, including their five-year CAREER award, and a Young Investigator Prize and the E. O. Wilson Naturalist Award from the American Society of Naturalists. His research has been featured in outlets including the New York Times and National Public Radio’s Fresh Air.

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is phenomenal. I have already booktalked it with middle school students. This one could definitely inspire some future scientists or create some citizen scientists. Highly recommended.

[Alex Trillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review is from my son Isaac Caldwell, who read the book and fell in love with it! He is 11 years old, so he doesn't have his own account yet:
"Beetle Battles combines science with autobiographical stories of the author to make for a fascinating book. It tells the story of a young Emlen on a quest to find out why dung beetles have sometimes unusually large horns. There are several reasons why I found this book so fun to read:
To begin with, I especially liked the photographs and drawings. The book has a lot of photos that help make the text a lot more understandable. The photographs of the beetles in the lab, when Emlen was experimenting with red light, were really useful to see how dung beetle tunnels look in real life. There was also a drawing of the tunnels that showed how small beetles sneaked into tunnels to mate with the females, while the large males didn’t notice.
Emlen also uses a lot of examples of many different animals to help the reader understand the important concepts of this book. For instance, he talked about mammoth tusks, elk antlers, and crab claws to explain how different animals had different kinds of weapons, and how these weapons could be very costly. It reminded me of one of the monsters from the movie Pacific Rim that had a weapon that when set off, had the power to turn off the electricity in the entire city, but was so costly that it could only be used once. While he explains some concepts several times throughout the book, I think he does this because wants to make sure we understand his hypotheses about beetle weaponry clearly.
I really enjoyed Emlen’s stories about being a biologist in the rainforest. For example, I liked the story about being covered in “seed ticks”. It was a funny moment, with a little bit of self-deprecating humor. The travels searching for the Golofa porteri beetles in Ecuador and Colombia sounded really exciting. I also liked that he brought his family back to Panama after so many years, so that he could show them the place he worked at for so long. I lived in Panama for four years of my life, and I also loved seeing the tamarins, the nephila spiders, the capibaras, the sloths, and the agoutis.
In conclusion, this book was really fun to read. It had so many different stories and ideas, so many different animals and countries, that I am sure people of all ages will love it."

[duskywing · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a scientist studying animals in the rain forest? Beetle Battles is quite the treat for both kids and adults alike. Emlen shares with the reader his infectious sense of adventure and wonder for scientific discovery. The story takes you on a journey through Emlen’s fieldwork in Ecuador, Panama, and Tanzania where he aims to discover why some beetles have big horns and others have small horns. The book features gorgeous images of animals (narwhales, elephants, caribou, and birds to name a few) along with biographical ‘in-the-moment’ photos of Emlen at work. I found the photos of this scientist at work, his field sites and experimental setup, to be especially valuable in allowing me to visualize, along with Emlen’s words, how he performed his research—a step that is often missing from science narratives. The photos offer a rare peek into the scientist’s mode of operation—from his own perspective. The book contains informative side-bars explaining genetic and biological concepts in simple, easy-to-understand terms. The latter part of the book will be especially appealing to readers interested in gaming, combat, and warfare as Emlen deftly explains how the same principles that govern animal weapons can be found in human behaviors. I found the ending of the book unexpected and thought-provoking. While I would have liked to have seen a bit more discussion of female animals wielding weapons (Emlen discusses one example, the jacana), I thought this was a great read.

[Pamela Hatch · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw this very interesting cover at the library and checked it out to take home and just glance through it...well...I found myself reading everything because the author's adventures through the rain forest trying to find beetles was both humorous and educational. The whole book, as well as the author's life work, is wrapped around on seemingly simple question -- why do beetles have horns?

So the first part of the book talks about selecting a species of beetle to study, travelling the world to find the beetles, building experiments to study the beetles, duplicating the experiments to validate data, etc. But as he finds answer...Emlen also finds more questions...which leads him out of biology and into military history to find the answers. (I actually didn't read much of the last part finding it not as interesting as the first part).

Book contains a lot of color, glossy photos.

...If in most species most of the time the benefits of big weapons are small, then costs should keep evolutionary increases in weapon size in check. Males that stumbled on a bigger weapon would do worse, not better, than their rivals since the benefits they gleaned from these structures wouldn't be enough to justify the cost. -- Explaining big weapons meant focusing on the exceptions to this rule. Under what ecological conditions might the benefits of big weapons be so great that they outweighed the costs? (p71)

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

In many respects this book reminds me of the writings of Sy Montgomery because the stories are so detailed and personal. It's clear that Emlen is passionate about anything associated with beetles, and that his is the love of a lifetime. While it might be a stretch to connect the weapons used by beetles to those developed by humans, particularly when it comes to technology, it was interesting to consider the arms race and cyberhacking as related to how some beetle species have evolved. What I found most appealing in this book, though, were his diary entries and anecdotes about the time he spent in Panama and other places collecting and studying beetles. The insight into this species that he has gleaned from all that study is impressive. Many readers will love all the photographs and matter-of-fact style of writing he uses when discussing topics such as poop that others might flinch while presenting. It was also interesting to consider the price paid for enormous horns or weapons in certain animals and to wonder at what point there will be no going back from those sizes. I'd use this title alongside some of the excellent fiction titles featuring beetles.

[Noah Litle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book for anyone who wants an overview of why and how arms races happen. Both in nature and in the wars of men.
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Because it was written for young adults, it's a little light on material and heavy on memoir. But that did make it easier to read. I think this is a shortened version of Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle, rewritten for young adults.
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I only wish he had included more about the beetles and how he studied them. The first half was great in this department, but then the second half just kind of skimmed over the research and got to the point, talking more about human arms races.
~
Anyway.
Now I know how to make arms races happen in my writing.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who thought dung beetles weren't interesting?! The book keeps you turning pages with Emlen's personal story of, and beginning interest in, this research, along with many beautiful photos. Great non-fiction for middle or high school.

[Alaina · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took a odd military route at the end, but besides that it was an interesting read.

[Bruce Behrens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beetle Battles is a fascinating book that is about much more than beetles. It actually has three interwoven topics. One topic is the author’s travels as he conducted research on animal weapons in remote parts of the world. A second topic is the science of animal weapons, including the author’s research on dung beetles. The third topic is military history and the evolution of human weapons ranging from suits of armor to nuclear weapons.

My 10-year-old boy was immediately caught up in the story of the author’s exotic travels in search of rare beetles. When the beetles that the author planned to study turned out to be even more rare than expected, he decided to research dung beetles instead. What better combination of subjects could there be for kids than exotic locations, monkey dung, beetles with horns, arms races and real science?

I prefer to read non-fiction, but I have not found many non-fiction books that are entertaining for kids. Kids non-fiction is often pretty dry, with a lot of “fun facts.” The “Who Would Win?” series is an example for younger kids. The same for dinosaur books. Beetle Battles is not like that.

Beetle Battles is a true story about real science that is kid-friendly, but not oversimplified. For example, in one of the most difficult parts, it explains in a few pages how the author demonstrated that he could selectively breed dung beetles for horn length, including a short discussion of sampling error! You may need to slow down and answer a few questions if you are reading this chapter to a 10-year-old (I did), but it is entirely understandable. The book also includes many helpful graphics and color photographs.

As I write this, Amazon suggests that this book is for ages 8 to 12. I would not recommend the book for kids younger than 10, especially if they are going to read it themselves. I don’t think there is an upper age limit for the book. I enjoyed reading it, and learned some new things, even though I had already read the author’s other book on (mostly) the same subjects, Animal Weapons.