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A review by tonstantweader
The Sting of the Wild by Justin O. Schmidt
4.0
Justin O. Schmidt is the entomologist who developed the Schmidt Pain Index that ranks how much pain different insect stings deliver on a scale of 1 to 4 with 4 being the rolling on the ground in agony pain. He wrote The Sting of the Wild to not just tell his pain index story, but to explore how stinging evolved and to what purpose.
His focus is on ants, bees, and wasps, the triumvirate of stinging insects. The insects are both prey and predator. Honeybees and fire ants sting to protect their homes. On the other hand, tarantula hawks (a wasp) stink to paralyze their tarantula prey so they can drag it home to be eaten alive for weeks as their eggs develop into pupa. I sure hope tarantulas don’t feel pain or have awareness because the larvae feed on them while alive and they don’t die until they develop into pupae and eat the brain and nerve cells. It’s so gross.
He also describes the life cycle of several of these species and some of them are fascinating. For example, we are generally told that critters cannot mate across species, that’s kind of what makes them species. However, two species (rough harvester ants and red harvester ants) of harvester ants have a sort of ant orgy where the females of both species mate with males of both species. The eggs fertilized by their own species become reproductives and the eggs fertilized by the other species become the nonreproductive workers. Amazing!
The Sting of the Wild is a great book for lay readers. Think of it as insect gossip, though verified gossip, of course. It has that convivial tone of sharing what’s going on with the Jones, but the Jones are killer bees. It’s full of fun anecdotes including tales of stings in history and tidbits of information such as the infamous “yellow rain” that Gen. Alexander Haig claimed was a chemical weapon dropped on the Hmong in retaliation for their helping the US that turned out to be bee poop.
You don’t have to be a bug lover to enjoy The Sting of the Wild. I sure am not one, but nature is endlessly inventive and Schmidt knows how to make her inventions interesting and enjoyable.
I received a copy of The Sting of the Wild as a gift from John Hopkins University Press with no expectation of review.
The Sting of the Wild at Johns Hopkins University Press
Justin O. Schmidt research publications at ResearchGate
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2018/06/21/9781421419282/
His focus is on ants, bees, and wasps, the triumvirate of stinging insects. The insects are both prey and predator. Honeybees and fire ants sting to protect their homes. On the other hand, tarantula hawks (a wasp) stink to paralyze their tarantula prey so they can drag it home to be eaten alive for weeks as their eggs develop into pupa. I sure hope tarantulas don’t feel pain or have awareness because the larvae feed on them while alive and they don’t die until they develop into pupae and eat the brain and nerve cells. It’s so gross.
He also describes the life cycle of several of these species and some of them are fascinating. For example, we are generally told that critters cannot mate across species, that’s kind of what makes them species. However, two species (rough harvester ants and red harvester ants) of harvester ants have a sort of ant orgy where the females of both species mate with males of both species. The eggs fertilized by their own species become reproductives and the eggs fertilized by the other species become the nonreproductive workers. Amazing!
The Sting of the Wild is a great book for lay readers. Think of it as insect gossip, though verified gossip, of course. It has that convivial tone of sharing what’s going on with the Jones, but the Jones are killer bees. It’s full of fun anecdotes including tales of stings in history and tidbits of information such as the infamous “yellow rain” that Gen. Alexander Haig claimed was a chemical weapon dropped on the Hmong in retaliation for their helping the US that turned out to be bee poop.
You don’t have to be a bug lover to enjoy The Sting of the Wild. I sure am not one, but nature is endlessly inventive and Schmidt knows how to make her inventions interesting and enjoyable.
I received a copy of The Sting of the Wild as a gift from John Hopkins University Press with no expectation of review.
The Sting of the Wild at Johns Hopkins University Press
Justin O. Schmidt research publications at ResearchGate
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2018/06/21/9781421419282/