The Harmony of Bees and Other Charms of Creepy Crawlies

They have lived on Planet Earth from well before the first apes and humans

appeared. They lead fascinating lives that involve shooting, stinging, flying,

jumping, biting, and more. Some can lift 500 times their body weight. Some

others navigate their way using the stars or even the Milky Way. Some are

deadly carriers of disease. And some pollinate more than one-third of our

food sources. Together, they are essential for life on Earth to continue in an

even balance. They are: ants, beetles, scorpions, mantids, butterflies, bees,

spiders, cockroaches and yes, even mosquitoes and flies

No one can describe the natural world as delightfully and humorously as

Ranjit Lal, and in The Harmony of Bees he brings his decades of experience

watching and closely interacting with the world of creepy crawlies to writing

about more than twenty kinds of them. Termites have central air conditioning

in their nests, he tells us. A grasshopper can jump ten times its own height

(which is like us jumping the length of a football field in one leap). The tiny

fig wasp is key to the survival of the mighty banyan tree. Not everyone hates

cockroaches-a zoo in Japan organized a cockroach exhibition and 'cockroach

petting sessions' Along with these bizarre and wonderful facts, Ranjit Lal

explains how these creatures live, mate, build their homes and look after (or

eat) their young.

Sometimes creepy, sometimes gruesome, always entertaining and packed with

information, this is an immensely entertaining and unusual nature book