Strange Lives of Familiar Insects

by Edwin Way Teale

Colorful informative guide to the ineresting lives of insects.

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction, Science

Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Edwin Way Teale was an American naturalist, photographer, and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. Teale's works serve as primary source material documenting environmental conditions across North America from 1930 - 1980. He is perhaps best known for his series The American Seasons, four books documenting over 75,000 miles (121,000 km) of automobile travel across North America following the changing seasons.

Reviews

[Nathan Ellis]

I read this because Annie Dillard called it “a book that I cannot live without.” I get it. This man loves insects and now I do too.

[Missy LeBlanc Ivey]

The Strange Lives of Familiar Insects by Edwin Way Teale (1962, 1st edition), 208 pages. Purchased used 1962 1st edition hardcover off eBay for $21.95 on 9/3/2023.

Edwin Way Teale (June 2, 1899 - October 18, 1980)

This was a pretty good and an easy educational read. I learned of this book from reading “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” by Annie Dillard (p. 68). Annie wrote that she couldn’t live without this book. She had an extreme fascination watching insects have sex and the females devouring the males. I don’t have quite the same fascination so much, and I could probably live without this book. Lol

First half of the book is general behaviors of many different insects. It really wasn’t all that fascinating. A little too general. Then, he gets into specifics about certain insects per chapter: Mayfly, Dragonfly, Termite, Cricket, Praying Mantis, Aphid, Chinch Bug, Lacewing Fly, Monarch Butterfly, Housefly, Ladybird Beetle, Cicada-killer Wasp, Paper-making Wasp and the Ant.

My notes on particular insects that interest me:

I am partial to dragonflies. Here, I learn that dragonflies are born underwater as nymphs, has gills and lives the life of a fish until it sheds enough to develop wings. Then, it is completely airborne and could easily drown if it fell into water. Dragonfly nymphs can consume 20 mosquito nymphs a minute under water. Full grown dragonflies have been studied, and recorded, with over 100 mosquitos at one time in its mouth. They can eat 40 or more HORSEFLIES in a two hour span. A single female can lay 110,000 eggs. The dragonfly’s eyes make up the majority of its head and bulges out. Each eye has as many as 30,000 lenses in one eye. Since it catches its food in mid-air, it can see ahead, behind, above and below all at the same time and can see a considerable distance. It uses its two front legs to scoop up its prey mid-flight. So, they are definitely worth their weight in gold. Dragonflies, like ants, appear to be deaf.

Botfly is a large fly throughout the U.S. that lays its pupae onto mosquitoes. When mosquitoes land on any warm blooded mammal, including humans, the pupae hatches and jumps ship, imbedding instantly into the skin. This parasite, as it is known, was controlled by Ivermectin back in 1960s and is still controlled by Ivermectin today.

Mayfly season is mid to late June. Male mayflies are born without mouths. They exist to mate and die within a few hours. Mayfly nymphs are favorite food for white bass. When the adults are merging, they become favorite food of trouts. Mayflies are also favorite food for sunset dragonflies, swallows, and bullfrogs and found throughout the U.S. So, why haven’t I ever seen one here in Southeast Texas? We have love bugs galore here in June, but no Mayflies.

The praying mantis is the only insect who can move its head around like man. Their jaws and spiky forearms are very powerful. They’ve been known to snatch up butterflies, dragonflies, and even hummingbirds. They typically don’t bite humans, but it they do or grab you with their front legs, they can cause you to bleed. But, it won’t feel any worse than a little paper cut at most. The females can begin chomping on the back of the males neck, beheading it, even while still in the act of him fertilizing her eggs. Why wait? LOL. This gives her the strength to lay those blasted eggs.

Male aphids are born ONLY when daylight time shortens in fall, and they are born without mouths…like the mayflies. Their only purpose is to reproduce and die. Otherwise, all aphids are female and can reproduce walking young aphids without the males. When fertilized by the males, the females lay eggs. Aphids and ants have a partnership. The ants save the eggs from winter by taking them deep inside the ant nest where they will hatch come spring. Ants love the sweet taste of aphid honeydew, which is just a waste by-product released one drop at a time. Warrior ants will stand guard over clumps of aphids to protect this. They will even massage the backs of aphids to help release more drops. Everyone wins. LOL.

Teale, to the best of his knowledge at the time, claimed that the monarch butterfly only feeds on milkweed. But, in my experience, they will feed off dill weeds too. Last summer, they devoured our dill, along with the two milkweeds I planted. This year the leaves are already gone off the milkweed and so are the caterpillars. I need to plant more all around my well house to support them. Every spring, just cut them back and new stalks grow. After feeding and growing for 12 days, the caterpillars will crawl up to 300 feet away to find a leaf or twig to attach itself to and spin itself into a beautiful green cocoon, called a chrysalis, speckled with shining gold. The normal days of the chrysalis is 12, but can last from 2-22 days. Male monarchs have scent scales that smell faintly like honeysuckle. You can recognize a male by a large dark spot on each rear wing along one of the veins. Monarchs have evil-tasting blood. Their colored wings is a warning to all birds, especially the young and inexperienced.

BOOKS MENTIONED:

- “Bumblebees and Their Ways” by Otto Plath. (p. 9)

- “Ant-Hill Odyssey” by William M. Mann

- “The Dancing Bees” by Karl von Frisch NOTE: He marked hundreds of bees from a colony to be able to identify and follow their activities for over 20 years.

- W.H. Hudson “Far Away and Long Ago” and “A Hind in Richmond Park” (p. 81)

[Patrick]

I wanted to like this book more than I did. A friend of mine managed to characterize it at a quick glance: like those Discovery Channel documentaries he had grown up on. Which is to say, a fun read with plenty of little facts and observations thrown in. But it is also somewhat unsatisfying if you have already had much exposure to the subject matter, e.g., by reading E.O. Wilson. I would still recommend it to anyone who is interested in the natural world and insects in particular, but for myself, I'd go back to Wilson or more serious writers afterwards.

[Kim Zinkowski]

For Ethan. I wish this book covered more. Some very interesting things which I did not know. I'll have to look more carefully at the insects in the springs and summers ahead.