Evolution of the Insects (Cambridge Evolution Series)

Evolution of the Insects (Cambridge Evolution Series)
David Grimaldi,Michael S. Engel | 2005-05-16 00:00:00 | Cambridge University Press | 772 | Biology
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Reviews
The product arrived before the expected, in perfect conditions.

Personally I have to say that this book is one of the best books in this topic, if you have a chance to buy it, you won't regret.
Reviews
This is simply a GREAT book. I am not a scientist! The book is technically more than sound and yet accessible for the natural history buff, bug fans, those interested in flower/insect symbiosis. Anyone curious about the natural world "must-have" this book on their shelves--or rather in their hand. The book is beautiful. It is also an appropriate "gift" for a PhD specializing in etymology, although he probably already has it? Or the bright, curious high-school girl. I couldn't put it down!
Reviews
The illustrations are stunning.



The writing is judicious and comprehensive, but never tedious or stale.



The citations are comprehensive and up-to-date, and the discussion based on them synthesizes the views of naturalists, entomologists, paleontologists, biologists, and systematists, but without ever burying important contemporary controversies.



The authors are active researchers, who somehow found the time to put this gorgeous volume together for the rest of us while pursuing their own fresh interests.



You need not be a professional to read, enjoy, and benefit from this volume. Any intelligent layperson with an abiding interest in science and the deep evo-devo connections between ourselves and this most successful animal group will gain enrichment and goggle at the photos, paintings, charts, and other graphic content. Recent fossil discoveries are particularly well discussed and displayed, but the graphics are superb overall--the illustrations of grasshopper dentition are alone worth the price of admission!



Really, what more could you want?



Any tome of this size and production quality is bound to be pricey. But there are solutions to that--encourage your local public library system to obtain a copy, or indulge in a "guest researcher" membership at your nearest university library, or simply grit your teeth and get a copy now.



Because you know volumes like these don't stay in print forever, and are not the kind that diminish greatly in price over any reasonably near term.
Reviews
The book was in our hands before the predicted day and in excellent conditions. It is the recommended literature to the PhD course of Entomology, in this field.
Reviews
This book was a textbook for a course on insect fossils I took a few years ago and we read it cover to cover. My fellow classmates and I (all professional entomologists) had mixed reviews of this book. While it undoutedly provides a lot of good information and is a tremendous contribution to the field of insect fossils, it also contains several mistakes and leaves out a lot of important information. For example, the professor for my fossil insect course is one of the world's experts on giant water bug fossils and was appalled to see what was clearly a giant water bug fossil, from a formation in Germany he has studied himself, labeled as a naucorid, a completely different insect. A description of a dryopid beetle fossil on another page said that all stages of dryopids are aquatic when the larvae are terrestrial. My classmates and I found several such errata throughout the book and felt they seriously undermined the reliability of the information it contains. We were also all annoyed by the lack of molecular support for the arguments presented by the authors. While morphological data is certainly important to consider in systematic studies, it is blatently obvious that the authors don't think much of molecular phylogenetic data. This is unfortunate because in several cases, molecular data has cleared up long standing controversies over taxnomic deliniations where morphological data alone could not. It is clear from the text that the authors are more comfortable with the morphological data than molecular (as expected - they're experts on insect fossils), which would be fine if the book was called Insect Paleontology. However, this book is called Evolution of the Insects. Molecular data is a huge part of modern insect systematics and phylogenetics and any book purporting to canvas the subject of insect evolution should take advantage of the entire wealth of knowledge available and report on it all. That said, this book does what few other books does: it contains information on both extant and extinct linages and it covers the groups we know only through fossils as thoroughly as it does the living taxa. For me, that information alone makes this book worth reading, and is the reason I give it 3 stars insted of 2.

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