Insect Lives: Stories of Mystery and Romance from a Hidden World Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a beautifully and cleverly edited eclectic collection of stories, articles, poems, scientific treatises, and even cartoons about insects. There are quaint stories from the eighteenth century, studious articles from the nineteenth, and modern selections from such twentieth century experts as Edward O. Wilson, Roger B. Swain. Karl von Frisch, May Berenbaum, Harold Oldroyd and others. Charles Darwin is represented, Aristotle, Alfred Russel Wallace, Thoreau, even the Bible makes an appearance. There are selections from a novella, A.S. Byatt's "Morpho Eugenia"; poems, Wordsworth's "To a Butterfly," Robert Burns's "To a Louse"; and even a bit of a movie, THEM! (1954). Obviously, editors, Hoyt and Schultz are as intent at entertaining as informing. You'll find dozens of different insects here, from house flies and ants to dung beetles and glow-worms to ticks, wasps, silverfish, etc. Each selection is presented with a short note from the editors and followed by a bibliographical entry. There is an index of authors and one of subjects. The selections are collected under various heading, e.g., "Insects Praised," "Insects Reviled," "Insect Architecture," etc. The sheer breath of insect behavior presented here is unnerving: How multifarious are the realities of life! Noteworthy is the meticulous care taken with the editing and proofreading. This is a good and strange read.

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The Amazing Monarch: The Secret Wintering Grounds of an Endangered Butterfly Review

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(More customer reviews)This book truly took my breath away with its gorgeous photography and story. Just when you think you're familiar with the earth, you find a book like this and marvel anew at its wonders.

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In "The Amazing Monarch," author and photographer Windle Turley chronicles the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. Replete with page after page of full-color photographs, the book shows the monarch’s rarely captured destination wintering grounds. The contrast of the orange and black pops off the page as the reader goes on a visual tour in the high mountains of Mexico. The multifaceted work also contains poems and quotations focusing on the beauty of these tiny animals that weigh only .02 of an ounce.With carefully researched text and consultation with leading entomologists, "The Amazing Monarch" tracks the monarch’s migration and interesting life spans. Amazingly, this migration only takes place every four to five generations, but somehow, by the last week of October, the returning generation arrives at the same small groups of oyamel fir trees their ancestors populated the year before.The handful of roosting sites, located at about 10,000-feet altitude, each may contain 20 to 30 million monarchs in a single site only a few acres in size. After their stay in Mexico, it is crucial to head north to get back to Texas and Louisiana and specific types of milkweeds to lay their eggs during a critical three-week period. If the monarchs reach their destination too early, frost on the milkweed could kill the eggs. A late arrival may mean the milkweed is no longer succulent.Returning from Mexico, the fourth or fifth generations will now have lived nine months, and before dying, will lay eggs during the last two weeks of March. A female will lay 400 to 500 eggs during her lifetime, and primarily on only one type of milkweed plant, but only a small percentage of eggs will actually survive to become adult butterflies. The offspring of the first generation travel on to Kansas and Tennessee during April where the female will again lay her eggs and die, after having lived only 45 to 60 days. The process continues to South Dakota, Iowa and Wisconsin in May and the Great Lakes and Canada region in June. But the fourth or fifth generation will not breed, lay eggs, or die; instead, they head south in the late summer.Granted almost unprecedented access by Mexican wildlife officials, Turley photographed the insects in their natural habitats at their sanctuaries in Los Saucos near Valle de Bravo, State of Mexico and at the Sierra Chincua Sanctuary near Mineral de Anganguo, State of Michoacan—areas unknown to outsiders until 1975.

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Chasing Monarchs: Migrating with the Butterflies of Passage Review

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(More customer reviews)I'm amazed no one else wrote about this book. Lepidopterists know it, and Pyle, well. My friends at the New York Butterfly Club put me on to this book and Kurt Johnson's Nabokov's Blues. They are both great books. Pyle's book takes you on a journey from the Pacific Northwest all the way to Mexico, following the annual fall migration of these magnificent orange butterflies. You not only learn about butterflies but a historical travelog of much of the old west, tidbits of local history, fantastic scenery and lots of scientific adventure and daring. Conservation issues are the internal lesson, so you have a worthwhile message along with a great story. The other book, about Nabokov's science is similar-- a great adventure story with butterflies, and a great novelist/writer as central character. Someone told me butterflies are about as popular now as dinosaurs. Its easy to see why. I live and work in the city, so reading about the great outdoors is a great break and fascination. Its wonderful that respected scientists are telling fascinating stories about the creatures they study. You can't go wrong with either of these books.

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