The Most Remarkable Insect Migrants: How These Tiny Travellers Shape Our World

Description:

Full of jaw-dropping wonder, cutting-edge science and immersive storytelling, a leading scientist of insect migration reveals a world on a different scale.

For many, insects inspire creepy-crawly fear. To Dr Will Hawkes, bugs are complex creatures who alter every facet of our world with the beat of their tiny wings. In this book, Hawkes takes us across continents and through centuries, tracking the impact of our many-legged friends.

Each year, insects the size of a baked bean migrate thousands of kilometres unnoticed above our heads. From the cabbage white butterfly to a buff-tailed bumblebee and even the humble house fly, these fragile insects cross oceans and navigate continents. Using senses that we humans cannot even perceive, they're able to analyse wind strength and direction, navigate by the Milky Way, develop super strength in their flight muscles, and much more. These tiny travellers are also climate heroes - creators of biodiversity and climate resilience, pollination, soil health and crop security - and have influenced our folklore and culture in ways unseen - until now.

With verdant prose, this book blends cutting-edge science with engaging storytelling in a passionate narrative - calling us to protect our tiniest of climate allies.