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Thieves, Deceivers, and Killers: Tales of Chemistry in Nature
The tobacco plant synthesizes nicotine to protect itself from herbivores. The female moth broadcasts sex pheromones to attract a mate, while a soldier ant deploys an alarm pheromone to call for help. The carbon dioxide on a mammal's breath beckons hungry ticks and mosquitoes, while a flower's fragrance speaks to the honey bee. Indeed, much of the communication that occurs within and between various species of organisms is done not by sight, sound, or touch, but with chemicals. From mating to parenting, foraging to self-defense, plant and animal activities are accomplished largely by the secretion or exchange of organic chemicals. The fascinating and fast-developing science that encompasses these diverse phenomena is introduced here, by William Agosta, in a series of remarkable stories absolutely accessible to the general reader yet revelatory to chemists and biologists.
Among Agosta's characters are the organisms that steal, counterfeit, or interpret the chemical signals of other species for their own ends. We learn of seeds that mimic ant odors to facilitate their own dispersion and flies that follow the scent of truffles to lay their eggs. We read about pit vipers that react in terror when their flicking tongues detect a king snake, and slave-making ants incapable of finding their own food. And we meet ice-age people who ate birch fungus to relieve whipworms and early human hunters who used the urine of wolves to maneuver deer to favorable sites.
Agosta also chronicles the rapid development of the applied science that makes use of chemical ecology. As researchers deepen our understanding of the biological world, they are making economically significant discoveries (such as enzymes that remain stable in extreme heat), finding ways to reduce our reliance on manufactured pesticides, identifying new uses for traditional medicines, and developing sophisticated new pharmaceuticals effective in treating malaria and several cancers. On the horizon are antiviral agents derived from the chemical defenses of marine species.
From the exploits of flies to the high-stakes effort to cure human disease, Agosta's tour of chemical ecology grants any reader entrance to the invisible realm where chemistry determines life and death.
Among Agosta's characters are the organisms that steal, counterfeit, or interpret the chemical signals of other species for their own ends. We learn of seeds that mimic ant odors to facilitate their own dispersion and flies that follow the scent of truffles to lay their eggs. We read about pit vipers that react in terror when their flicking tongues detect a king snake, and slave-making ants incapable of finding their own food. And we meet ice-age people who ate birch fungus to relieve whipworms and early human hunters who used the urine of wolves to maneuver deer to favorable sites.
Agosta also chronicles the rapid development of the applied science that makes use of chemical ecology. As researchers deepen our understanding of the biological world, they are making economically significant discoveries (such as enzymes that remain stable in extreme heat), finding ways to reduce our reliance on manufactured pesticides, identifying new uses for traditional medicines, and developing sophisticated new pharmaceuticals effective in treating malaria and several cancers. On the horizon are antiviral agents derived from the chemical defenses of marine species.
From the exploits of flies to the high-stakes effort to cure human disease, Agosta's tour of chemical ecology grants any reader entrance to the invisible realm where chemistry determines life and death.
248 pages, Paperback
First published November 13, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 7, 2020
At the end of Micro, by Crichton, there was an extensive bibliography, from which I made quite a few notes for future reading - this is the first of those books. Agosta does a fine job of explaining in layman's terms (for the most part) some of the incredible complexity of chemical and other interactions between diverse species in the plant and animal kingdoms. While he is careful to attribute all of this wild and crazy stuff to the forces of evolution (no science writer dares to cross the Darwinists, after all), people who regard these things as evidence of God's infinite creativity will enjoy this book, too. I had yellow sticky notes plastered throughout the book, highlighting interesting points, by the time I was through.
The world of chemical interactions among plants, animals and other organisms is far more complex that I ever imagined, and I'm certain that in the decade since this book was published, scientists have discovered even more amazing and wonderful things. I'd always known that ants used chemical scents to mark their trails to food, and to communicate on a very basic level, but I hadn't realized that there are between ten and twenty different antenna-detected chemical signals that keep a colony running smoothly, from trail marking, to reporting the existence of another colony's scouts, and even a special "recruiting" chemical to gather the war party to drive off the invaders.
Even the same chemical compound can be used by different species for different functions. Carbon dioxide is used by ants as an aggregation signal - encouraging them to join their nestmates, used by corn rootworms as a signal leading them towards their food - corn roots, and used by mosquitoes and a few other pests to track their prey.
Agosta tells the story of ant gardens in the forests of southeastern Peru, where arboreal ants gather the seeds of particular plants - only the types that will flourish in their nests - and take them into their nests, which are cemented together by their own glandular secretions. Some of these plants bear moist, pulpy fruits and nectar to feed the ants, in return for their hospitality, and exude anti-fungal compounds to keep fungus from growing in the ant nests. The ants care for the plants, protecting them from herbivores, fertilizing them with vertebrate feces, and covering up their questing roots with new nest material. As scientists began to investigate the selection of particular seeds, they found that a particular chemical was present in all of the seeds selected, and not present in those which are not used in the ants' nest gardens. Non-gardening ants in the same forest find these particular seeds repugnant, and will not gather them for food.
Neat factoid - a single pound of honey represents the nectar from about seventeen thousand foraging trips and entails over seven thousand bee-hours of labor. Appreciate that next dollop in your tea!
In the pollination of fringed orchids of the genus Platanthera, there are only two species of hawk moths that are able to do the job. The orchids store their nectar deep inside a 6 cm tube at one end of the flower, the longest of any North American orchid. Only hawk moths have a proboscis (nose) long enough to reach down to the bottom of the flower to get at the nectar, and the necessary requirements to pollinate the flower, as well. When the moth is in the proper position to gather the nectar, its head touches against two pollen-bearing organs, one on each side, and the pollen is cleanly transferred to the moth's eyes, which are set at precisely the correct width to transfer the pollen. At the next orchid, the pollen is transferred to two receptive structures (if it's a female flower), again spaced just right for the moth's pollen-coated eyes.
There used to be a show on PBS or the History Channel called Connections, I think. They would trace the development of some modern event or invention back to something you would never believe was related. Agosta does the same thing with mosquitoes and the Louisiana Purchase. It seems that in 1802, a yellow fever epidemic caused by mosquitoes caused the French forces occupying Haiti to finally give up. Napoleon ordered a withdrawal, and decided not to seek an American empire any longer, which left France receptive to the young U.S.'s $15 million dollar offer for the territory in 1803. My hometown of Lewiston would certainly not exist if it were not for those mosquitoes.
There is a certain type of insect, the firebrush mite, that lives only on firebrush pollen and nectar in the wild. If a mite ends up on the wrong type of flower, it will have no opportunity to mate with others of its kind. The mites travel from flower to flower in the nasal cavities of hummingbirds. When a hummingbird approaches a particular flower, it will only hover there for a short time, and the mite has to decide whether to rush (at a speed equivalent to that of a cheetah) out of the bird's nose and onto the flower. The mites are blind, so they must use the scent of the flower as it is inhaled by the hummingbird, and make the right decision in a split second. The mites jump to the wrong flowers only 1 time in 200!
"Tiny parasitic wasps...lay their eggs in the larvae of Caribbean fruit flies, which they find by following the strong smell of rotting fruit where the larvae mature. Three simple chemical compounds from the fruit are particularly enticing to the wasps. These chemical markers, themselves products of microbial fermentation, are formed as bacteria and fungi feed on the fruit and decompose it. In this case, then the feeding of one group of organisms (microbes) on another (fruit) yields a chemical signal that leads a third group (wasps) to the location of a fourth (fly larvae). Only with this elaborate assistance are the wasps able to reproduce."
Agosta spends some time in the oceans, too. There is a particular type of dragon fish which lives in the lightless depths that uses blue light to hunt. As all other deep water species can see only red light, and are blind to blue, this is a huge advantage. The blue pigment in its eyes, however, is chlorophyll-based. Chlorophyll is produced by plants, not animals. How did the fish get the chlorophyll?
It turns out that there are species of green sulphur bacteria living in the ocean vents, which are eaten by plankton, which are eaten by tiny crustaceans, which are eaten by larger crustaceans, which are eaten, finally, by the dragon fish. The chlorophyll is sequestered (unused) by all of the organisms in the food chain, until the dragon fish metabolizes it and uses it to produce the blue pigments which give it its hunting advantage. Crazy, huh?
Another thing I found interesting was the magnetic microbes. There are certain bacteria which live in muddy ponds in North America that accumulate magnetite (a magnetic ore) and align the crystals in spikes about 120 nanometers long, just the right length to create a needle-like magnet. The magnet helps them to determine which direction is north and which is up and is down. They always swim to the north and downward so they can remain at the bottom of their murky pools. Similar bacteria living in the southern hemisphere always swim to the South; their compasses are aligned the opposite direction!
Tons of great, crazy discoveries to enjoy in this book. I highly recommend it!
The world of chemical interactions among plants, animals and other organisms is far more complex that I ever imagined, and I'm certain that in the decade since this book was published, scientists have discovered even more amazing and wonderful things. I'd always known that ants used chemical scents to mark their trails to food, and to communicate on a very basic level, but I hadn't realized that there are between ten and twenty different antenna-detected chemical signals that keep a colony running smoothly, from trail marking, to reporting the existence of another colony's scouts, and even a special "recruiting" chemical to gather the war party to drive off the invaders.
Even the same chemical compound can be used by different species for different functions. Carbon dioxide is used by ants as an aggregation signal - encouraging them to join their nestmates, used by corn rootworms as a signal leading them towards their food - corn roots, and used by mosquitoes and a few other pests to track their prey.
Agosta tells the story of ant gardens in the forests of southeastern Peru, where arboreal ants gather the seeds of particular plants - only the types that will flourish in their nests - and take them into their nests, which are cemented together by their own glandular secretions. Some of these plants bear moist, pulpy fruits and nectar to feed the ants, in return for their hospitality, and exude anti-fungal compounds to keep fungus from growing in the ant nests. The ants care for the plants, protecting them from herbivores, fertilizing them with vertebrate feces, and covering up their questing roots with new nest material. As scientists began to investigate the selection of particular seeds, they found that a particular chemical was present in all of the seeds selected, and not present in those which are not used in the ants' nest gardens. Non-gardening ants in the same forest find these particular seeds repugnant, and will not gather them for food.
Neat factoid - a single pound of honey represents the nectar from about seventeen thousand foraging trips and entails over seven thousand bee-hours of labor. Appreciate that next dollop in your tea!
In the pollination of fringed orchids of the genus Platanthera, there are only two species of hawk moths that are able to do the job. The orchids store their nectar deep inside a 6 cm tube at one end of the flower, the longest of any North American orchid. Only hawk moths have a proboscis (nose) long enough to reach down to the bottom of the flower to get at the nectar, and the necessary requirements to pollinate the flower, as well. When the moth is in the proper position to gather the nectar, its head touches against two pollen-bearing organs, one on each side, and the pollen is cleanly transferred to the moth's eyes, which are set at precisely the correct width to transfer the pollen. At the next orchid, the pollen is transferred to two receptive structures (if it's a female flower), again spaced just right for the moth's pollen-coated eyes.
There used to be a show on PBS or the History Channel called Connections, I think. They would trace the development of some modern event or invention back to something you would never believe was related. Agosta does the same thing with mosquitoes and the Louisiana Purchase. It seems that in 1802, a yellow fever epidemic caused by mosquitoes caused the French forces occupying Haiti to finally give up. Napoleon ordered a withdrawal, and decided not to seek an American empire any longer, which left France receptive to the young U.S.'s $15 million dollar offer for the territory in 1803. My hometown of Lewiston would certainly not exist if it were not for those mosquitoes.
There is a certain type of insect, the firebrush mite, that lives only on firebrush pollen and nectar in the wild. If a mite ends up on the wrong type of flower, it will have no opportunity to mate with others of its kind. The mites travel from flower to flower in the nasal cavities of hummingbirds. When a hummingbird approaches a particular flower, it will only hover there for a short time, and the mite has to decide whether to rush (at a speed equivalent to that of a cheetah) out of the bird's nose and onto the flower. The mites are blind, so they must use the scent of the flower as it is inhaled by the hummingbird, and make the right decision in a split second. The mites jump to the wrong flowers only 1 time in 200!
"Tiny parasitic wasps...lay their eggs in the larvae of Caribbean fruit flies, which they find by following the strong smell of rotting fruit where the larvae mature. Three simple chemical compounds from the fruit are particularly enticing to the wasps. These chemical markers, themselves products of microbial fermentation, are formed as bacteria and fungi feed on the fruit and decompose it. In this case, then the feeding of one group of organisms (microbes) on another (fruit) yields a chemical signal that leads a third group (wasps) to the location of a fourth (fly larvae). Only with this elaborate assistance are the wasps able to reproduce."
Agosta spends some time in the oceans, too. There is a particular type of dragon fish which lives in the lightless depths that uses blue light to hunt. As all other deep water species can see only red light, and are blind to blue, this is a huge advantage. The blue pigment in its eyes, however, is chlorophyll-based. Chlorophyll is produced by plants, not animals. How did the fish get the chlorophyll?
It turns out that there are species of green sulphur bacteria living in the ocean vents, which are eaten by plankton, which are eaten by tiny crustaceans, which are eaten by larger crustaceans, which are eaten, finally, by the dragon fish. The chlorophyll is sequestered (unused) by all of the organisms in the food chain, until the dragon fish metabolizes it and uses it to produce the blue pigments which give it its hunting advantage. Crazy, huh?
Another thing I found interesting was the magnetic microbes. There are certain bacteria which live in muddy ponds in North America that accumulate magnetite (a magnetic ore) and align the crystals in spikes about 120 nanometers long, just the right length to create a needle-like magnet. The magnet helps them to determine which direction is north and which is up and is down. They always swim to the north and downward so they can remain at the bottom of their murky pools. Similar bacteria living in the southern hemisphere always swim to the South; their compasses are aligned the opposite direction!
Tons of great, crazy discoveries to enjoy in this book. I highly recommend it!
April 12, 2024
2.5/5
October 7, 2015
Better living through chemistry?
The central message of this gracefully written, highly informative, and refreshingly modest book by Rockefeller University Professor Emeritus William Agosta is that there is a wealth of chemicals produced in nature that humans can effectively use to fight disease, control pests, and facilitate chemical reactions--if only we can find, understand and harvest them.
Agosta begins with a tale about a species of ant that enslaves members of another species using a variety of chemicals. He ends the book with the idea that we might find desperately needed new antibiotics by examining the chemicals made by animals "that form herds or flocks, as well as those that live in organized societies, such as the social insects..." (p. 212) Agosta's rationale is that other social creatures face the same danger that humans face, that of pathogens that rapidly spread in a crowd. Surely they have come up with some chemical defenses we might discover and employ ourselves. He cites ants as a particularly likely prospect for study and gives the example of the bulldog ants of Australia who, when injected with the common human intestinal bacterium, Escherichia coli, manufacture an antibiotic that promptly kills it.
In between the bookend chapters, Agosta spins tales about how microbes and insects, plants and sea creatures, fungi and arachnids attract, repeal, steal from, deceive, enslave, parasitize and kill one another, mainly with chemicals. The world he depicts is largely a world where eyes and ears are secondary to the sense of smell, a bizarre fairy land of complicated arrangements among species and delicate ecologies. A case in point is the in-door farm of the leaf-cutting ant which involves not only the ants and the trees they get the leaves from and the fungus they grow, but also the use of a species of streptomyces to produce an antibiotic to kill a fungal pest in their gardens. In other words, not only are ants farmers, they use pesticides!
Agosta emphasizes that we must understand the interactions of species to appreciate their use of chemicals. He uses the phenomenon of Lyme disease as an example, and how it is affected by the mass fruiting cycle of oak tree acorns which influence the numbers of mice and deer on which the ticks that harbor the Lyme disease parasites live. Two years after a bumper crop of acorns there is a concomitant rise in the number of people who get Lyme disease.
In particular, these are tales of parasite and host. I was startled to learn on page 223 that ticks and mites are so prevalent that they have "parasitized almost every organism larger than themselves." Indeed, something similar can be said of the nematodes (roundworms) who "have parasitized virtually every species larger than themselves." (p. 224) When one thinks about the countless viruses and bacteria that prey on humans and all the other animals and plants, one realizes that we live in a world of parasites.
However, the single most startling and mind-expanding thing I read in this book is the story in Chapter 11, "Real-World Complexity," of a wasp that uses a virus to help it subdue the hornworm caterpillars it deposits its eggs in. This opens up the possibility that we can use viruses to invade and kill microbes and cure disease. Perhaps this is already being done in laboratories somewhere, or at least is in the experimental stage.
All this information is interesting, even exciting, and potentially of great use by humans, but if we are to benefit from the chemical knowledge of microbes, plants and animals, we need to preserve what wild life we have left in the world, in particular that of the rain forests where there is such an incredible variety of life. These myriad creatures have, over the vast eons of time, learned to create and manufacture chemicals that we could never discover on our own. It would be a shame to throw away all this knowledge for a few trillion hamburgers....
I recall some years ago that a major corporation had as its advertising slogan: "Better living through chemistry." I used to always think when I heard that, "but life IS chemistry." This book strongly supports that idea.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
The central message of this gracefully written, highly informative, and refreshingly modest book by Rockefeller University Professor Emeritus William Agosta is that there is a wealth of chemicals produced in nature that humans can effectively use to fight disease, control pests, and facilitate chemical reactions--if only we can find, understand and harvest them.
Agosta begins with a tale about a species of ant that enslaves members of another species using a variety of chemicals. He ends the book with the idea that we might find desperately needed new antibiotics by examining the chemicals made by animals "that form herds or flocks, as well as those that live in organized societies, such as the social insects..." (p. 212) Agosta's rationale is that other social creatures face the same danger that humans face, that of pathogens that rapidly spread in a crowd. Surely they have come up with some chemical defenses we might discover and employ ourselves. He cites ants as a particularly likely prospect for study and gives the example of the bulldog ants of Australia who, when injected with the common human intestinal bacterium, Escherichia coli, manufacture an antibiotic that promptly kills it.
In between the bookend chapters, Agosta spins tales about how microbes and insects, plants and sea creatures, fungi and arachnids attract, repeal, steal from, deceive, enslave, parasitize and kill one another, mainly with chemicals. The world he depicts is largely a world where eyes and ears are secondary to the sense of smell, a bizarre fairy land of complicated arrangements among species and delicate ecologies. A case in point is the in-door farm of the leaf-cutting ant which involves not only the ants and the trees they get the leaves from and the fungus they grow, but also the use of a species of streptomyces to produce an antibiotic to kill a fungal pest in their gardens. In other words, not only are ants farmers, they use pesticides!
Agosta emphasizes that we must understand the interactions of species to appreciate their use of chemicals. He uses the phenomenon of Lyme disease as an example, and how it is affected by the mass fruiting cycle of oak tree acorns which influence the numbers of mice and deer on which the ticks that harbor the Lyme disease parasites live. Two years after a bumper crop of acorns there is a concomitant rise in the number of people who get Lyme disease.
In particular, these are tales of parasite and host. I was startled to learn on page 223 that ticks and mites are so prevalent that they have "parasitized almost every organism larger than themselves." Indeed, something similar can be said of the nematodes (roundworms) who "have parasitized virtually every species larger than themselves." (p. 224) When one thinks about the countless viruses and bacteria that prey on humans and all the other animals and plants, one realizes that we live in a world of parasites.
However, the single most startling and mind-expanding thing I read in this book is the story in Chapter 11, "Real-World Complexity," of a wasp that uses a virus to help it subdue the hornworm caterpillars it deposits its eggs in. This opens up the possibility that we can use viruses to invade and kill microbes and cure disease. Perhaps this is already being done in laboratories somewhere, or at least is in the experimental stage.
All this information is interesting, even exciting, and potentially of great use by humans, but if we are to benefit from the chemical knowledge of microbes, plants and animals, we need to preserve what wild life we have left in the world, in particular that of the rain forests where there is such an incredible variety of life. These myriad creatures have, over the vast eons of time, learned to create and manufacture chemicals that we could never discover on our own. It would be a shame to throw away all this knowledge for a few trillion hamburgers....
I recall some years ago that a major corporation had as its advertising slogan: "Better living through chemistry." I used to always think when I heard that, "but life IS chemistry." This book strongly supports that idea.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
November 20, 2015
Thieves Deceivers and Killers: Tales of Chemistry in Nature is a perfect example of one of these things: Deceiving. Because that's exactly what this book was: Deceiving. The book has little to do with it's own title, instead focusing on multiple topics revolving around things like SEX, which there is tons of. The book doesn't center around it's main idea at all, making it automatically inarguable as to what it's main idea is, as well as what one can say as far as what's wrong with this book!
The book is about different topics, specifically that of chemistry in nature, as it constantly talks about things such as proto ants having a brainwashing chemical in them that they use on other ant species to cause them to become slaves, or flies and the different types of diseases they carry and how just flies themselves cause dread with just their being, and SEX. The one main thing that stuck out in all of this was SEX. They talk about it when bringing up plants being pollinated even, which I will admit is something that is actually interesting to think about how that can create problems in the plant, but that's not the point. If most of the time William Agosta (the author) was going to make a book about SEX in nature, why even put in the thieves, deceivers and killers part of this? Just call it Chemistry in Nature, we'll figure out what they mean by chemistry in the first few pages.
Over all the book wasn't bad, it had some interesting ideas to think about, especially ones that made me think more about our biology class and how that plays into what I was reading. But that's still no excuse as to how it straight up lied to us (or sorry, DECEIVED us) with just the title of the book. It's shouldn't be titled something that the author deeply thought about and came up with by looking at the finer details. I already have to use all my energy to read the text, come up with a picture of what's currently happening, and focus only on that. Now I have to think about how this plays into the title? I shouldn't have to! Especially when from a broads eye view, there's just tons of stuff about SEX in it, which really annoyed me, thus being why I've been capitalizing the word the entire time. In the end, this book has no direct reference to the main idea or the title itself, instead going on about different topics out there. That's why I would say don't read this book. If you're like me and you just picked it up because of it's title, you're surely mistaken on what this is REALLY about, like some other science books I read. If you're judging it by it's cover, then pay attention to the words beneath all the gigantic text, not the words that stick out the most. Take it from me: This book is only good because of it's interesting facts, not the main idea. So, as far as anybody else cares, I leave you with saying: DON'T JUDGE A BOOK BY IT'S COVER, ESPECIALLY THIS ONE!
The book is about different topics, specifically that of chemistry in nature, as it constantly talks about things such as proto ants having a brainwashing chemical in them that they use on other ant species to cause them to become slaves, or flies and the different types of diseases they carry and how just flies themselves cause dread with just their being, and SEX. The one main thing that stuck out in all of this was SEX. They talk about it when bringing up plants being pollinated even, which I will admit is something that is actually interesting to think about how that can create problems in the plant, but that's not the point. If most of the time William Agosta (the author) was going to make a book about SEX in nature, why even put in the thieves, deceivers and killers part of this? Just call it Chemistry in Nature, we'll figure out what they mean by chemistry in the first few pages.
Over all the book wasn't bad, it had some interesting ideas to think about, especially ones that made me think more about our biology class and how that plays into what I was reading. But that's still no excuse as to how it straight up lied to us (or sorry, DECEIVED us) with just the title of the book. It's shouldn't be titled something that the author deeply thought about and came up with by looking at the finer details. I already have to use all my energy to read the text, come up with a picture of what's currently happening, and focus only on that. Now I have to think about how this plays into the title? I shouldn't have to! Especially when from a broads eye view, there's just tons of stuff about SEX in it, which really annoyed me, thus being why I've been capitalizing the word the entire time. In the end, this book has no direct reference to the main idea or the title itself, instead going on about different topics out there. That's why I would say don't read this book. If you're like me and you just picked it up because of it's title, you're surely mistaken on what this is REALLY about, like some other science books I read. If you're judging it by it's cover, then pay attention to the words beneath all the gigantic text, not the words that stick out the most. Take it from me: This book is only good because of it's interesting facts, not the main idea. So, as far as anybody else cares, I leave you with saying: DON'T JUDGE A BOOK BY IT'S COVER, ESPECIALLY THIS ONE!
May 20, 2016
while weeding the 500s at my library, I stumbled across this book. Honestly, the title and the front cover grabbed me and I checked it out - thus saving it from the dust pile of our booksale. I suppose I am glad I did.
It is not a bad little book about some interesting insects and how they are manipulated or who manipulate chemicals to get what they want. The stand outs were the parts about the ants and the tobacco wasps. Also the firebush mites that hitch a ride on hummingbirds, for these little creatures timing is everything. I am constantly amazed at two things, 1. how much we have figured out about the weird world of insects and 2. how much we still do not understand about the life that surrounds us.
In closing, millipedes are super cute. Not that Agosta mentions them at all, I just thought I'd leave that here.
It is not a bad little book about some interesting insects and how they are manipulated or who manipulate chemicals to get what they want. The stand outs were the parts about the ants and the tobacco wasps. Also the firebush mites that hitch a ride on hummingbirds, for these little creatures timing is everything. I am constantly amazed at two things, 1. how much we have figured out about the weird world of insects and 2. how much we still do not understand about the life that surrounds us.
In closing, millipedes are super cute. Not that Agosta mentions them at all, I just thought I'd leave that here.
July 20, 2016
Slightly outdated, but still a very interesting read.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews