Diptera

The story is not a simple entomological treatise on the subject, Queensland fruit fly, but an investigation of the farmers, government officials and scientists who have had to deal with the fruit fly, their varied responses, and ultimately, the author’s own investigations.

Colonial and agricultural history are involved. Scientific history and biography are involved. Some of the author’s autobiography is interpolated, as he is an actor in the story as well as its historian. And of course, there is inevitably entomology, although you can probably skip that if you find it uninteresting.

The conclusions and implications point to a particular interpretation or re-interpretation of Darwinian evolution; they point to the impacts of a foreign horticulture and colonial mentality on a new continent; and if you don’t know in advance what is the crucial discovery that explains the fly’s resilience as a pest, there is an element of a scientific mystery story here.

A full-colour, highly illustrated guide to the sixty-four known species of mosquitoes in eleven genera that populate the South, from the Gulf coastal states to the Carolinas. In addition to detailed and fully illustrated identification keys for both larvae and adults, this book includes information on the mosquito’s lifecycle, interaction with humans, and biological diversity in the southeast. This area of the country has a rich mosquito fauna with diverse species ranging from the tiny pitcher plant mosquito to the brilliantly coloured cannibal mosquito. Close-up photographs of live adults showcase their widely varied and beautiful bodies while remarkable images made with the aid of a microaquarium reveal the differences in larval stages of the subjects. For each species described, Nathan D. Burkett-Cadena provides biological information including distribution maps, habitat associations of the larvae and adults, range of animals fed upon, and importance from a medical standpoint. This book’s usefulness to mosquito control programs in the Southeast and beyond cannot be overstated. Not only for native species, but for new species introduced from exotic locales, mosquitoes must be properly identified in order to know how best to control them. This volume will also be valuable to medical and public health specialists working on mosquito-borne diseases, such as malaria, dengue, yellow fever, West Nile virus, and filariasis.

This book is the first guide to integrate full-colour photography, illustrated keys, and current information on the biology of mosquitoes into one definitive resource.