Life on a little-known planet

Outstanding. Even though fifty years have gone by, there is a lot of great entomology and ecology in this book. The author pretty much focuses on a different group in each chapter. How locust swarms come about, femme fatale fireflies luring males of other species, indestructible cockroaches, these and many other phenomena are examined with humor and authority.
He never talks down to the reader , nor does he dumb things down.
It’s like having a great conversation (or ten) with your favorite professor.

A classic introduction to entomology with both natural history and discussion of famous and then recent laboratory work. The book’s chapters are each on a separate type of insect or bug including springtails, cockroaches, dragonflies, crickets, fireflies, butterflies, house flies, bedbugs, locusts, and the author’s specialty parasitic wasps. As the author reports, Louis Agassiz said, The possibilities of existence run so deeply into the extravagant that there is scarcely any conception too extraordinary for Nature to realize. Evans reminds us that we are all travelers on a fragile ship, and that we are destroying it at a faster and faster rate. The original publication is copyright 1968. My copy was reissued in 1993 with a new show more preface and epilogue. The author reports, and probably added in 1993 that:

We also know that our burning of fuels over the last century has caused a 14% increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This has already caused a slight general increase in temperature, and it is postulated that by the year 2000 global temperatures may have increased by as much as 4 degrees ....This may have strange effects on weather patterns and may melt parts of the Antarctic ice sheet.... show less

the funniest book of entomology I've ever read