For Love of Insects

If you ever wondered about the secret life of that stink beetle that you antagonized for a chance to gross out your friends as a kid, this is the book for you. Or even better, if you ever wanted to know more about bugs but didn't have the wherewithal to pick up or read an entomology text, this is your book. Written in fascinating detail but still highly accessible to the laymen, this is the book to read for those people that find curiosity about the world around them to be a permanent companion. Eisner describes in detail that habits of and his experiments with beetles that spray boiling liquid and larvae that hide under thatched fecal shields among some of the assorted offerings. I picked this up in it's more expensive hard-cover show more format after browsing it in a major chain bookstore and ended up taking it home even though I couldn't well afford the cost at the time and what a rare treat it turned out to be. This has found it's way to my permanent collection where I dearly hope my grandkids will one day browse it's pages excitedly oohing and ahhing. show less

A beautifully illustrated book about Thomas Eisner's career at Cornell studying the chemical emissions of insects, arthropods and millipedes. It is written in a quite accessible style, and includes a lot of the “thrill of the chase” and the serendipitous eureka moments he experienced over a lifetime of insect hunting. There are accounts of discovering the emissions of the bombardier beetle, and the ability of a particular millipede to create cyanide without poisoning itself.

interesting.