Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps [9780063029927]

Overview

“A book that draws us in to the strange beauty of what we so often run away from.” — Robin Ince, author of The Importance of Being Interested

In this eye-opening and entertaining work of popular science in the spirit of The Mosquito, Entangled Life, and The Book of Eels, a leading behavioural ecologist transforms our understanding of wasps, exploring these much-maligned insects’ secret world, their incredible diversity and complex social lives, and revealing how they hold our fragile ecosystem in balance.

Everyone worries about the collapse of bee populations. But what about wasps? Deemed the gangsters of the insect world, wasps are winged assassins with formidable stings. Conduits of Biblical punishment, provokers of fear and loathing, inspiration for horror movies: wasps are perhaps the most maligned insect on our planet. 

But do wasps deserve this reputation?

Endless Forms opens our eyes to the highly complex and diverse world of wasps. Wasps are 100 million years older than bees; there are ten times more wasp species than there are bees. There are wasps that spend their entire lives sealed inside a fig; wasps that turn cockroaches into living zombies; wasps that live inside other wasps. There are wasps that build citadels that put our own societies to shame, marked by division of labor, rebellions and policing, monarchies, leadership contests, undertakers, police, negotiators, and social parasites. Wasps are nature’s most misunderstood insect: as predators and pollinators, they keep the planet’s ecological balance in check. Wasps are nature’s pest controllers; a world without wasps would be just as ecologically devastating as losing the bees, or beetles, or butterflies.

Wasps are diverse and beautiful by every measure, and they are invaluable to planetary health, Professor Sumner reminds us; we’d do well to appreciate them as much as their cuter cousins, the bees. 

This paradigm-shifting book reveals the truth about nature’s most misunderstood insect:

• Evolutionary History: Discover why bees are simply wasps that have forgotten how to hunt, and how wasps are the ancestors of all ants.
• Ecosystem Services: Learn how wasps act as nature’s unheralded pest controllers, keeping our ecosystem in balance and protecting crops without chemicals.
• Secret Pollinators: Uncover the hidden world of wasp pollination, from the minuscule fig wasps that make figs possible to orchids that trick wasps into mating with them.
• Wasp Societies: Explore wasp citadels with their monarchies, rebellions, and social parasites—societies so complex they rival our own.
• From Venom to Zombies: Delve into the science of wasp venom, its potential for human medicine, and how some species turn cockroaches into living slaves.