HIDDEN WORLD: How Insects Sustain Life

Entomologist and TV presenter Dr George McGavin looks at the weird and wonderful world of insects and reveals how they created our world and how they could shape our future. Insects conquered the Earth long before we did and will remain here long after we are gone. They outnumber us in the billions and are essential to keep many of the natural processes that keep us alive and that we take for granted, and every page is a very readable argument that we should appreciate the hidden world of six-legged creatures far more. McGavin takes a deep dive to reveal the unknown truths about the most successful and enduring animal groups the world has ever seen and explores not only the incredible traits that insects have evolved to possess, such as dragonflies that can fly across oceans without resting, or beetles that can lay their eggs exclusively in corpses, but also the vital lessons we have learned from them, including how therapy using maggots can save lives, and how bees can help grow rich tomato yields. The four distinct groups are millipedes and centipedes with elongated bodies and lots of pairs of legs, eight legged species such as mites and scorpions, crustaceans such as shrimp, crabs and lobsters and barnacles with a few terrestrial species such as woodlice and the fourth and by far biggest group are the Insecta, which comprise ¾ of all animal species, and well over half of all known species and their total biomass is at least ten times that of all humans and our livestock combined. Let's let that fact sink in... Crawling with detail and glowing with extraordinary facts and rich with humour and personality. 266pp.