Miniature Lives: Identifying Insects in Your Home and GardenWe can’t avoid insects. They scurry past us in the kitchen, pop up in our gardens, or are presented to us in jars by inquisitive children. Despite encountering them on a daily basis, most people don’t know an aphid from an antlion, and identifying an insect using field guides or internet searches can be daunting. Miniature Lives provides a range of simple strategies that people can use to identify and learn more about the insects in their homes and gardens. Featuring a step-by-step, illustrated identification key and detailed illustrations and colour photographs, the book guides the reader through the basics of entomology (the study of insects). Simple explanations, amusing analogies and quirky facts describe where insects live, how they grow and protect themselves, the clues they leave behind and their status as friend or foe in a way that is both interesting and easy to understand. Gardeners, nature lovers, students, teachers, and parents and grandparents of bug-crazed kids will love this comprehensive guide to the marvellous diversity of insects that surrounds us and the miniature lives they lead. |
Contents
1 Introduction | 1 |
2 Insect basics | 5 |
3 Morphology what insects look like | 25 |
4 Habitat where insects live and occur | 71 |
5 Clever clues the strange structures and evidence that insects leave behind | 145 |
6 Insect Orders | 161 |
Glossary | 304 |
Pronunciation guide | 313 |
316 | |
Further reading | 321 |
325 | |
Other editions - View all
Miniature Lives: Identifying Insects in Your Home and Garden Michelle Gleeson No preview available - 2016 |
Common terms and phrases
abdomen adult animals antennae ants aphids aquatic arthropods bees beetles bodies booklice brown butterflies and moths camouflaged caterpillars cicadas cockroaches colour complete metamorphosis compound eyes damselflies Dorey dragonflies dragonflies and damselflies earwigs eggs feed females fleas flies fore legs fore wings garden Go to Chapter Go to Question Goodie or baddie Grasshoppers and crickets grubs habitat head Hemiptera hind legs hind wings Hymenoptera identification key identify insect Orders juvenile katydids lacewings Large compound eyes larvae leaf insects leaf litter leafhoppers leaves lice lifecycle long and thin maggots males mate mealybugs membranous wings mosquitoes moths moult mouthparts nest numbers nymphs Order Hemiptera pair pests photographs planthoppers plants pollination Praying mantids predators prey pupa sawflies scale insects Silverfish skin slender species in Australia species Order spiders stick insects Suborder termites Things in common thorax thrips tiny trees true bugs undergo complete usually vegetable wasps wingless