Life in the Undergrowth

David Attenborough
Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
2005, 288 pp.
Price: $29.95 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 0-691-12703-4

Negative perceptions of invertebrates that many people have will likely change after reading Life in the Undergrowth, largely because the diversity of observations on aspects of invertebrates’ lives included in this book would be useful to professional entomologists and non-scientists alike. Learning and studying details of the life of invertebrates, especially cryptic species, is exciting but challenging. However, Attenborough gives a glimpse of remarkable moments in the lives of many invertebrates. The combination of photographs and stories allows the reader to create a mental picture of invertebrate behavior and makes the book an exceptional resource in understanding the lives of invertebrates. 

Divided into five chapters, the book mostly flows smoothly from one topic to another with a few exceptions. Subsection titles would have been advantageous to the reading experience so that one could further understand the transitions in topic made by the author within a chapter. For example, in the first chapter the author writes about invertebrates moving from water to land, but a quarter of the way into the chapter, the author abruptly changes tack and starts to describe how plants evolved from water to land and then shifts again to describe invertebrate body segmentations. Such hurried topic changes are not congruent with a smooth flow and development of ideas; instead, they leave the reader confused and expectantly waiting for the author to finish one idea before starting another. Nevertheless, the author maintains the reader’s interest in the topic due to his use of real-life stories integrated as examples within the book.

The first chapter begins by addressing how the physiologies of primitive invertebrates evolved from aquatic to terrestrial existence. To illustrate this concept, the author describes the changes in the scorpion’s mouthparts and breathing structures required for living on land. Also, he elucidates the misconception generally believed by non-biologists that size matters. In the invertebrate world, size may be deceiving. Using the size of scorpion’s pincers as an example, he explains that the bigger the scorpion pincers, the more mild its sting. Smaller scorpions with fat tails and thin pincers may seem less intimidating, but they are the fastest and deadliest of scorpions. The photographs of the leopard slugs and millipede courtship found in Chapter 1 are uniquely striking. Although I have observed millipedes many times in rearing tanks, I never imagined that this was what their courtship looked like. 

The next chapter demonstrates how insects colonized the air quite remarkably. The author defines the terms, including haltere and elytra, to allow non-entomologists to follow the text and appreciate the variations of theme in insects.  Within this chapter, I enjoyed the section about mayflies the most. The author tackles this subject with great enthusiasm and explained how in their adult stages, mayflies do not feed and are short-lived, but still affect their environment profoundly.  A real-life example of this are the mayflies in central Hungary, whose numbers are so thick when they emerge that fishing is almost impossible. The Hungarian fishermen realize that the density of mayflies will render their bait ineffective.

Another chapter (Chapter 3) discusses how the production of silk, usually associated with larvae of the silkworm, Bombyx mori and spiders, is of great importance to other insects as well. Many invertebrates, including millipedes, bristletails, springtails, ants, fungus gnat larvae, lacewing adults, web-spinners, and a whole array of spiders produce and use silk for a variety of reasons.  Silk is used in capturing prey, maternal care, house-building, transportation, and reproduction.

Personally, the two sections describing the “alluring glowing bodies of fungus gnat larvae” in a New Zealand cave and the web building occurring underwater were some of the most interesting to me in the silk chapter. Here, the author tells of fungus gnats in the caves of Waitomo, New Zealand that are the exception to the general rule that fungus gnats are vegetarian. The fungus gnat larvae of these caves use silk and mucus to catch prey. To attract the prey, the tip of the abdomen is illuminated and the insect prey is attracted to the light and trapped in the silk strands. Another section describes the water spider, Argyroneta. Argyroneta builds her web under water, attaching it to the roots of water plants. She brings down air bubbles and encapsulates them between the silk threads, allowing her to breathe underwater. Inside her home, she will sit and catch prey that accidentally fall into the water. 

Understanding insect behavior is necessary to learn how these magnificent creatures live, interact with other organisms, and create working relationships within communities. Chapter 4, “Intimate Relations,” focuses on these relationships. The chapter encompasses pollination, mimicry and camouflage, symbiosis, mutualism, phoresy, blood feeding, and parasitic relationships.  One of these interesting relationships is brought to the fore by the author’s analogy of the similarity between farmers herding their cows to better pasture and ants herding aphids to nutritious areas of the plant. The importance of mass numbers as a defense mechanism is discussed in the final chapter of the book. The author gives an excellent overview of different insect societies including termites, wasps, bumble bees, honey bees, and ants.

I would have found excerpts of this book beneficial to include in the Introduction to Insects course that I used to teach to non-science undergraduate majors. The students would get a bigger picture of the insect world than they would have been exposed to in their everyday lives.  Overall, this book is appealing to a wide variety of audiences because the narration and pictures complement each other, allowing biologists and invertebrate aficionados to experience life in the undergrowth.

Bethzayda Matos
Department of Environmental Health & Safety
Iowa State University
Ames, IA 50011
E-mail: bmatos@iastate.edu
American Entomology
Vol. 53, No.3, Falll 2007