Insect

In this extensive update of his definitive reference, Charles D. Michener reveals a diverse fauna that numbers more than 17,000 species and ranges from the common honeybee to rare bees that feed on the pollen of a single type of plant. With many new facts, reclassifications, and revisions, the second edition of this book provides the most comprehensive treatment of the 1,200 genera and subgenera of the Apiformes. Included are hundreds of new references to work published since the appearance of the first edition. The book begins with extensive introductory sections that include bee evolution, classification of the various bee families, the coevolution of bees and flowering plants, nesting behaviour, differences between solitary and social bees, and the anatomy of these amazing insects. Drawing on modern studies and evidence from the fossil record, Michener reveals what the ancestral bee – the protobee – might have looked like. He also cites the major literature on bee biology and describes the need for further research on the systematics and natural history of bees, including their importance as pollinators of crops and natural vegetation. The greater part of the work consists of an unprecedented treatment of bee systematics, with keys for identification to the subgenus level. For each genus and subgenus, Michener includes a brief natural history describing geographical range, number of species, and noteworthy information pertaining to nesting or floral biology.   The book is beautifully illustrated with more than 500 drawings and photographs that depict behaviour, detailed morphology, and ecology. Accented with colour plates of select bees, this book will continue to be the world’s best reference on these diverse insects.

Providing coverage of sand-wasp tribes, this work offers a tribe-by-tribe, species by species review of studies of the Bembicinae. It is intended for those working on solitary wasps and serves as a useful reference for scientists interested in insect behavioural evolution. Howard Evans was a brilliant ethologist and systematist for whom the joy of science included lying on his belly in some remote location, digging out and diagramming a wasp’s nest. During his career, Evans described over 900 species and authored more than a dozen books, both technical and popular, on a wide range of entomological and natural history subjects. Upon his death in 2002, he left behind an unfinished manuscript, intended as an update (though not a revision) of his classic 1966 work, The Comparative Ethology and Evolution of the Sand Wasps. Kevin O’Neill, Evans’ former student and co-author, has completed and enlarged Evans’ manuscript, to provide coverage of all sand-wasp tribes in Evan’s earlier book. The result is a tribe-by-tribe, species by species review of studies of the Bembicinae that have appeared over the last four decades. The Sand Wasps: Natural History and Behavior already has been hailed by specialists as a new bible for those working on solitary wasps and an essential reference for scientists more broadly interested in insect behavioural evolution.

Barry Bolton’s “New General Catalogue of the Ants of the World”, published in 1995, was the first attempt in more than one hundred years to collect all taxonomic decisions for ants worldwide, including extinct as well as extant taxa. One reviewer said of it, “There is no longer an excuse for nomenclatural mistakes, since all past decisions are recorded here. All future revisions will use this reference as a point of departure.” Now, Gary Alpert, Philip Ward, and Piotr Naskrecki have joined Bolton to produce a completely updated and even more comprehensive edition of Bolton’s monumental work. The new edition incorporates all taxonomic papers – from 1758 through 2005 – on 14,550 species and subspecies of ants. The CD allows every valid species name to be linked to the primary taxonomic citation and to all subsequent taxonomic literature that is relevant. As was true of the earlier edition, both fossil and living ants are covered from the species level up through the subgenus, genus, tribe and subfamily rank. Each species description also records the caste – worker, queen, male, soldier, or minor worker – which was described, along with the page number and any illustrations. Ant larvae descriptions and chromosome papers can be searched within the data set. The ant’s type locality on a country-by-country basis can also be queried from this catalogue.