Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The World of a Wasp: The Quest to Understand a Remarkable Insect Society

The World of a Wasp: The Quest to Understand a Remarkable Insect Society

Gadagkar, Raghavendra

Hardcover

Insects & SpidersZoology

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0691291152
ISBN13: 9780691291154
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Pages: 296
Language: English

A world-renowned entomologist takes readers inside the world of social wasps to explore how these amazing insects organize a successful society

Raghavendra Gadagkar was a teenager when he first encountered the Indian paper wasp and has since spent decades unraveling the secrets of this remarkable species. The World of a Wasp takes readers along on his research journey, exploring how these insects form a highly evolved society with a sophisticated division of labor, efficient communication, and elaborate mechanisms for balancing cooperation and conflict to survive in a harsh tropical environment.

Although all the wasps in a colony look alike, only one is the fertile reproductive queen. The rest function as sterile workers laboring for the welfare of the colony, with duties ranging from building the nest and bringing food to feeding the larvae and guarding and cleaning the nest. Each chapter of this engaging book centers on a question, explaining the reasons behind it and the avenues Gadagkar and his students followed to arrive at an answer. How does a wasp become a queen? Why do the workers accept a subordinate role? How does a worker know what work to do? Through these and many other questions, Gadagkar invites readers to form their own conclusions and join in the discovery.

Drawing on careful observations and elegant experiments, The World of a Wasp offers a rare glimpse into the workings of a fascinating insect society and shares perspectives from a leading researcher on the practice and pleasures of science.

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