{"title":"Seirian Sumner","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"endless-forms-book-seirian-sumner-9780008394486","title":"Endless Forms","description":"‘A funny and beautifully written welcome to the enigmatic, weird and wonderful world of wasps’ DAVE GOULSON, author of SILENT EARTH           There may be no insect with a worse reputation than the wasp, and none guarding so many undiscovered wonders.                        Where bees and ants have long been the darlings of the insect world, wasps are much older, cleverer and more diverse. They are the bee’s evolutionary ancestors – flying 100 million years earlier – and today they are just as essential for the survival of our environment. A bee, ecologist Professor Seirian Sumner argues, is just a wasp that has forgotten how to hunt.                        For readers of Entangled Life, Other Minds and The Gospel of Eels, this is a book to upturn your expectations about one overlooked animal and the wider architecture of our natural world.             With endless surprises, this book might teach you about the wasps that spend their entire lives sealed inside a fig, about stinging wasps, about parasitic wasps, about wasps that turn cockroaches into living zombies, about how wasps taught us to make paper.             It offers up a maligned insect in all its diverse, unexpected splendour; as both predator and pollinator, the wasp is an essential pest controller worldwide. Inside their sophisticated social worlds is the best model we have for the earth’s major evolutionary transitions. In their understudied biology are clues to progressing medicine, including a possible cure for cancer.             The closer you look at these spurned, winged insects – both custodians and bouncers of our planet – the more you see. Their secrets have so far gone mostly untapped, but the potential of the wasp is endless.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49507967992081,"sku":"GOR012324115","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50603238359313,"sku":"GOR014011111","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0008394482.jpg?v=1751036078"},{"product_id":"endless-forms-book-seirian-sumner-9780008394516","title":"Endless Forms","description":"A funny and beautifully written welcome to the enigmatic, weird and wonderful world of wasps DAVE GOULSON, author of SILENT EARTH           There may be no insect with a worse reputation than the wasp, and none guarding so many undiscovered wonders.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49578859036945,"sku":"GOR013104275","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49742491582737,"sku":"NGR9780008394516","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51425962033425,"sku":"GOR013105025","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52157614850321,"sku":"GOR013346805","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52674535391505,"sku":"NLS9780008394516","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0008394512.jpg?v=1750693586"},{"product_id":"endless-forms-book-seirian-sumner-9780008394479","title":"Endless Forms","description":"‘A funny and beautifully written welcome to the enigmatic, weird and wonderful world of wasps’ DAVE GOULSON, author of SILENT EARTH           There may be no insect with a worse reputation than the wasp, and none guarding so many undiscovered wonders.                        Where bees and ants have long been the darlings of the insect world, wasps are much older, cleverer and more diverse. They are the bee’s evolutionary ancestors – flying 100 million years earlier – and today they are just as essential for the survival of our environment. A bee, ecologist Professor Seirian Sumner argues, is just a wasp that has forgotten how to hunt.                        For readers of Entangled Life, Other Minds and The Gospel of Eels, this is a book to upturn your expectations about one overlooked animal and the wider architecture of our natural world.             With endless surprises, this book might teach you about the wasps that spend their entire lives sealed inside a fig, about stinging wasps, about parasitic wasps, about wasps that turn cockroaches into living zombies, about how wasps taught us to make paper.             It offers up a maligned insect in all its diverse, unexpected splendour; as both predator and pollinator, the wasp is an essential pest controller worldwide. Inside their sophisticated social worlds is the best model we have for the earth’s major evolutionary transitions. In their understudied biology are clues to progressing medicine, including a possible cure for cancer.             The closer you look at these spurned, winged insects – both custodians and bouncers of our planet – the more you see. Their secrets have so far gone mostly untapped, but the potential of the wasp is endless.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49740458721553,"sku":"NGR9780008394479","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49864501854481,"sku":"GOR012285742","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50625801126161,"sku":"GOR012485500","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52880694214929,"sku":"GOR013622120","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0008394474.jpg?v=1751004450"},{"product_id":"endless-forms-book-seirian-sumner-9780063029927","title":"Endless Forms","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"A book that draws us in to the strange beauty of what we so often run away from.\"\u003c\/b\u003e -- \u003cb\u003eRobin Ince, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Importance of Being Interested\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eIn this eye-opening and entertaining work of popular science in the spirit of \u003ci\u003eThe Mosquito, Entangled Life,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Eels,\u003c\/i\u003e a leading behavioural ecologist transforms our understanding of wasps, exploring these much-maligned insects' secret world, their incredible diversity and complex social lives, and revealing how they hold our fragile ecosystem in balance.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEveryone worries about the collapse of bee populations. But what about wasps? Deemed the gangsters of the insect world, wasps are winged assassins with formidable stings. Conduits of Biblical punishment, provokers of fear and loathing, inspiration for horror movies: wasps are perhaps the most maligned insect on our planet. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBut do wasps deserve this reputation?\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eEndless Forms\u003c\/i\u003e opens our eyes to the highly complex and diverse world of wasps. Wasps are 100 million years older than bees; there are ten times more wasp species than there are bees. There are wasps that spend their entire lives sealed inside a fig; wasps that turn cockroaches into living zombies; wasps that live inside other wasps. There are wasps that build citadels that put our own societies to shame, marked by division of labor, rebellions and policing, monarchies, leadership contests, undertakers, police, negotiators, and social parasites. Wasps are nature's most misunderstood insect: as predators and pollinators, they keep the planet's ecological balance in check. Wasps are nature's pest controllers; a world without wasps would be just as ecologically devastating as losing the bees, or beetles, or butterflies.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWasps are diverse and beautiful by every measure, and they are invaluable to planetary health, Professor Sumner reminds us; we'd do well to appreciate them as much as their cuter cousins, the bees. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis paradigm-shifting book reveals the truth about nature's most misunderstood insect:\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cul\u003e \u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eEvolutionary History:\u003c\/b\u003e Discover why bees are simply wasps that have forgotten how to hunt, and how wasps are the ancestors of all ants.\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eEcosystem Services:\u003c\/b\u003e Learn how wasps act as nature's unheralded pest controllers, keeping our ecosystem in balance and protecting crops without chemicals.\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eSecret Pollinators:\u003c\/b\u003e Uncover the hidden world of wasp pollination, from the minuscule fig wasps that make figs possible to orchids that trick wasps into mating with them.\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eWasp Societies:\u003c\/b\u003e Explore wasp citadels with their monarchies, rebellions, and social parasites--societies so complex they rival our own.\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eFrom Venom to Zombies:\u003c\/b\u003e Delve into the science of wasp venom, its potential for human medicine, and how some species turn cockroaches into living slaves.\u003c\/li\u003e \u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50761403760913,"sku":"CIN0063029928G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51152290349329,"sku":"CIN0063029928VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51917711245585,"sku":"GOR014461209","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53076823310609,"sku":"NIN9780063029927","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0063029928.jpg?v=1750973236"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-seirian-sumner.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}