Description:
You may think a book with a title like The Encyclopedia of Land Invertebrate Behaviour would be soporifically dry, but nothing is further from the truth. Open up to any page and the color photography, sterling prose, and astounding variety of nature's idiosyncrasies will snare you. Take the hangingflies (Bittacidae), for example. Their courtship is fascinating. A male presents a female with an insect as a nuptial gift--the larger the gift, the longer time the female will schedule for copulation. Pictured is a hangingfly, presumably with big lovemaking plans in mind, presenting a large, plump insect to his hangingfly mate. The encyclopedia covers sexual, egg-laying, parental, feeding, and defensive behaviors for spiders, scorpions, and slugs (the photo of Roman snails in midcourtship dance is truly remarkable), ticks, centipedes, woodlice, and a variety of insects; it succeeds as a stunning work of scholarship (suitable for the shelves of biologists and students) and an addictive introduction for the invertebrate ignoramus. --Stephanie Gold
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