Biology, Ecological Importance and Diversity of Southern African Insects

About this book

Insects are those small things that keep natural ecosystems functioning, thereby making life on Earth possible for all plants and animals, including humans. They provide essential ecosystem services by pollinating plants that enrich human lives by their beauty, by feeding humanity and producing the oxygen we breathe; they bury the dung of farm and wild animals that improves the soil and prevents the spread of disease; and they decompose the remains of plants, thereby returning the nutrients locked in their tissues to the soil for use by living plants in an endless cycle of life and death. There are huge numbers of them, they differ vastly among themselves, and they perform multitudes of different activities. They are the only invertebrates that fly and have a history millions of years older than plants, birds and mammals. They are the only organisms to have influenced human evolution. Some aspects of their life histories are simply amazing, and their behavioural exploits astonishing.

In this innovative book, the authors document the stories of southern African insects in over 800 pages, with about 3200 beautiful photographs illustrating the rich morphological diversity and biological attributes of regional insect species. They emphasise their environmental importance as ecosystem service providers, and narrate, highlight, and illustrate many of the interesting, often remarkable, aspects of their life histories and behaviour. A beautiful full-colour book that is an ideal gift for any nature lover, it is written in an accessible style and is aimed not only at scientists but also at ordinary readers. The information contained in the book is of such a nature, though, that it is also a necessary addition to the bookshelf of researchers in the field of entomology and ecology.

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Biography

Clarke Scholtz is an emeritus professor of entomology at the University of Pretoria where he studied and taught over a period spanning more than 50 years. During this time, he spent 13 years as head of the Department of Zoology and Entomology, taught undergraduate courses in entomology, trained many postgraduate students, and published about 250 research papers as well as several books on insects in general and dung beetles in particular. During his career, he achieved significant international recognition for his research. Although retired, Clarke Scholtz is still associated with UP and continues research on insects.

Hennie de Klerk trained, then worked, as a metallurgist for all his professional life, but for the past 40 years, he has spent his spare time in the field ringing birds and studying and photographing plants and animals, especially birds and insects. This has turned into a full-time occupation since retiring a few years ago. He also regularly gives talks to various natural history interest groups on the lives of birds and insects, and presents courses on macrophotography; all of these are illustrated with many of his magnificent photos such as the ones presented in this book.