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We can't avoid insects. They scurry past us in the kitchen, pop up in our gardens, or are presented to us in jars by inquisitive children. Despite encountering them on a daily basis, most people don't know an aphid from an antlion, and identifying an insect using field guides or internet searches can be daunting.
Miniature Lives provides a range of simple strategies that people can use to identify and learn more about the insects in their homes and gardens. Featuring a step-by-step, illustrated identification key and detailed illustrations and colour photographs, Miniature Lives guides the reader through the basics of entomology (the study of insects). Simple explanations, amusing analogies and quirky facts describe where insects live, how they grow and protect themselves, the clues they leave behind and their status as friend or foe in a way that is both interesting and easy to understand.
Gardeners, nature lovers, students, teachers, and parents and grandparents of bug-crazed kids will love this comprehensive guide to the marvellous diversity of insects that surrounds us and the miniature lives they lead.
FOREWORD
1 INTRODUCTION
Why I wrote this book
Approaches to identifying insects
How to use this book
2 INSECT BASICS
What is an insect?
Insect body parts
Taxonomy – how insects are named
Insect orders – how insects are grouped
Insect growth and lifecycles
3 MORPHOLOGY – WHAT INSECTS LOOK LIKE
Using this chapter
Tips for getting started
Tools of the trade
The identification key
The little guys – insects less than 5 mm long
Maggots, grubs and caterpillars
4 HABITAT – WHERE INSECTS LIVE AND OCCUR
Using this chapter
Tips for getting started
Kitchen and pantry
Living room
Bathroom
Bedroom
Around lights
In water
Soil, leaf litter and compost
On trees and shrubs
On citrus trees
In the vegetable garden
On native trees and shrubs
In and around the lawn
In and around flowers
On the bodies of animals – the bloodsuckers
In large groups – masses and migrations
5 CLEVER CLUES – THE STRANGE STRUCTURES AND EVIDENCE THAT INSECTS LEAVE BEHIND
Using this chapter
Tips for getting started
Choose the clue
Markings on leaves and bark
Lumps and bumps on plants
Nests and hideouts
Cocoons, cases and eggs
6 INSECT ORDERS
How to use this chapter
Bees, wasps, ants and sawflies – Order Hymenoptera
Beetles – Order Coleoptera
Booklice – Order Psocoptera
Butterflies and moths – Order Lepidoptera
Cockroaches – Order Blattodea
Dragonflies and damselflies – Order Odonata
Earwigs – Order Dermaptera
Fleas – Order Siphonaptera
Flies – Order Diptera
Grasshoppers and crickets – Order Orthoptera
Lacewings – Order Neuroptera
Lice – Order Phthiraptera
Praying mantids – Order Mantodea
Silverfish – Order Thysanura
Stick and leaf insects – Order Phasmatodea
Termites – Order Isoptera
Thrips – Order Thysanoptera
True bugs – Order Hemiptera
Non–insect arthropods
GLOSSARY AND PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
FURTHER READING
INDEX
Michelle Gleeson is an entomologist and since 2005 has operated her own business, Bugs Ed., which educates around 10,000 people across Queensland, Australia each year on the wonderful world of insects. She is also an Adjunct Industry Fellow at The University of Queensland's School of Biological Sciences, collaborating on field research projects and outreach programs. Through her work, she takes complex concepts of entomology and conveys them to people in a way that is interesting, insightful and easily understood.
