Fascinating Insects: Some Aspects of Insect Life

About this book

This book highlights the very successful and much diversified group of organisms, the insects, and deals with some interesting aspects of insect life, which are often ignored in entomology textbooks. There are chapters on ants making "slaves;" insect migrations; chemical defence strategies; parental care and love; AIDS and insects; killer bees; and intelligence. The book also includes first-hand experiences of the great traveller-naturalist Prof. P. Jolivet, who narrates the re-emergence of the 17-year-cycle cicada in the USA in May 2004; the occurrence of insects on the great tepuys of Venezuela; marching of army ants in the tropical Africa; and much more.

Endorsement:
"Fascinating as Fabre`s Souvenirs Entomologiques, but here, they are real life-experiences under the tropics, incredible but true, related with talent.", Yves Delange, professor of botany, National Museum of Natural History, Paris, France.

Contents

Introduction. - How successful are insects? - Insects at sea - Insects in frigid regions - Omnipresent ants - Insect migrations - When ants wake up! - Chemical defence in beetles and moths - Instinct and intelligence in insects - Do insects learn? - Insects and tools - Insect aggregations - Infra-red receptors - Round defence (cycloalexy) - AIDS and insects - Living clouds - Killer bees - Butterfly hunters - Interesting ways of bees and dung beetles - A memorable month, May 2004, in the USA - Digestive strategies in insects - Insects and Plants during the carboniferous - Jurassic Park or the world of cycads - The lost world or the tepuys of Venezuela and insects there - Insects and the Gondwana Hypothesis - Love match! - Damselflies, experts in ballistics - Forest on the back - Scorpion beetles and lantern beetles - Timarcha, a bloa spitting magistrate - Rotation of the male copulatory organ in insects and biased chirality - Carnivorous plants - insect enemies or friends? - Parental care in insects - Pheromones - Parasol ants - Do ants make slaves? - Do insects feel pain? - Pocket mites - Aphids and ants - Locusts - Walking in insects - Coprophagy - insect brethren of crowned pigs of Borneo - .Lamarck's ghost or the Baldwin effect - Acknowlegments

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