Book Review
MINIATURE LIVES: Identifying Insects in Your Home and Garden
Michelle Gleeson, 2016, CSIRO Publishing.
This easy-to-use identification guide helps everyday Aussies and at home gardeners discover Australian insects in their own backyards or local park. Insects can be considered annoying, but they all play a vital role in the balance of our ecosystem. Whether they are scampering past us in the kitchen, fluttering or buzzing about in our gardens, or bought to us in clasped hands or jars by curious kids. Even though we stumble upon them everyday, most people don’t know the difference between a native bee and a European wasp, and often the internet or complicated field guides are overwhelming or misinformative. Miniature Lives provides straightforward tactics to identify and learn about the insects in our homes, parks and gardens. This book has a step-by-step, illustrated identification key and detailed illustrations and colour photographs and guides the reader through the basics of entomology (the study of insects). Simple descriptions, funny analogies and unusual facts are used to describe where insects live, how they grow and protect themselves, in a way that is both interesting and straightforward to understand. “Gardeners, nature lovers, students, teachers, parents and grandparents of bug-crazed kids will love this comprehensive guide to the marvellous diversity of insects that surrounds us and the miniature lives they lead”.
This book is available for loan from the Fleurieu Environment Centre, pop in and ask one of our wonderful volunteers to help you find it or browses the extensive range of environmental books in our library.