Flying Creepy Crawlers (Crazy Creepy Crawlers)

"Lice, fleas, ticks, leeches, liver flukes, tapeworms: 'Mini bugs rule!' Using repetition as a pedagogic strategy, selected mighty mites are introduced twice--once with basic facts captioning Calle's cartoon illustrations and snarky comments in dialogue balloons, and then on facing pages with large portrait photos and similar but differently presented information. In this volume Turner adds to the insects and other creatures already mentioned the tubby tardigrade, roly-poly woodlice, velvet worms (a deceptively cozy moniker: 'the velvet worm shoots twin jets of slime from its face-guns, leaving the victim helpless to defend itself'), and some many-legged myriapods. The close-up photos are presented in ghastly color, with insets representing scale in silhouette. In companion galleries in the Crazy Creepy Crawlers series, Turner offers titillating assortments of Deadly Spiders, Extraordinary Insects, and Flying Creepy Crawlers. Of particular interest to browsers may be the picture of the black widow spider lurking on the toilet seat in Spiders and the truly Extraordinary giant weta (short for wetapunga, Maori for 'the god of ugly things'). Suitable browsing for fans of all things crazy, creepy, and crawly."--Kirkus Reviews

Flying insects hold one of the great keys to survival: wings. And there are winged insects buzzing, flitting, and soaring all around us. Take a close-up look to see how the hummingbird hawk moth dodges predators as it feeds, how honeybees dance to show where food-rich flowers are, and how an emperor dragonfly can see—and fly—in all directions. You'll meet all kinds of incredible creepy crawlers with impressive flying techniques, from master-builder wasps to the always pesky mosquito. It's enough to make you wish you had wings too!