Secret Weapons: Defenses of
Insects, Spiders, Scorpions, and
Other Many-Legged Creatures by
Melody Siegler
Nice Style And Content
Mostly tiny, infinitely delicate, and short-lived, insects and their relatives--
arthropods--nonetheless outnumber all their fellow creatures on earth. How
lowly arthropods achieved this unlikely preeminence is a story deftly and
colorfully told in this follow-up to the award-winning For Love of Insects.
Part handbook, part field guide, part photo album, Secret Weapons
chronicles the diverse and often astonishing defensive strategies that have
allowed insects, spiders, scorpions, and other many-legged creatures not
just to survive, but to thrive.
In sixty-nine chapters, each brilliantly illustrated with photographs culled
from Thomas Eisners legendary collection, we meet a largely North

American cast of arthropods--as well as a few of their kin from Australia,
Europe, and Asia--and observe at firsthand the nature and extent of the
defenses that lie at the root of their evolutionary success. Here are the
cockroaches and termites, the carpenter ants and honeybees, and all the
miniature creatures in between, deploying their sprays and venom, froth
and feces, camouflage and sticky coatings. And along with a marvelous
bugs-eye view of how these secret weapons actually work, here is a close-
up look at the science behind them, from taxonomy to chemical formulas,
as well as an appendix with instructions for studying chemical defenses at
home. Whether dipped into here and there or read cover to cover, Secret
Weapons will prove invaluable to hands-on researchers and amateur
naturalists alike, and will captivate any reader for whom nature is a source
of wonder.
(20051001)
Personal Review: Secret Weapons: Defenses of Insects,
Spiders, Scorpions, and Other Many-Legged Creatures by
Melody Siegler
The "weapons" in the title are mostly chemical. They are poisons that
insects and their kin use to protect themselves from predators. Spiders,
insects, snakes and other animals use poisons to subdue their victims as
part of their preying arsenal, but what the authors focus on in this unusual
book are chemicals used by "many-legged creatures" as defensive
weapons. Pick up certain beetles or fly larvae or especially some
grasshoppers and caterpillars and they will vomit noxious stuff on you. It
will smell bad, it may contain harmful bacteria, and it will be "spiked" with
deterrent chemicals stemming from plants eaten by the insect.
Or the insect may defecate on you. Imagine that you are the size of the
insect, one of its predators. Imagine the effect of copious amounts of
feces coming at you. The authors show how these defenses actually work
on predators like wolf spiders and even small rodents. I was especially
struck by how often these defenses apparently evolved as defenses
against ants.
Of course many insects spit, spray, sting, and bite in response to being
disturb or threatened. This is how they deliver their noxious chemicals,
their poisons, their foul-smelling stuff, their stuff that stings, debilitates and
even kills. Eisner, Eisner and Siegler give numerous disquieting examples
of exactly how this is done in 69 very creepy chapters. Each chapter is
dedicated to a particular creature or Family of creatures from vinegaroons
(Chapter 1) through bombardier beetles (Chapter 35) to the honey bee
(Chapter 69). Millipedes, cockroaches, ants, aphids, termites and many
others make their gruesome appearance.
Gruesome...? Well, it's all in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. The
many photos of the creatures that accompany the text are arguably
beautiful. With some detachment I can see the earwig (Doru taeniatum)

shown in all its black and brown and tan glory on page 77 as quite
attractive. (However the beauty of the photo of the cockroach with its egg
case hanging out the back on page 59 is a bit beyond my ability to fully
appreciate.)
Nonetheless I realize that people who collect and study insects do find
them attractive, and properly seen they are as beautiful as...well, Penelope
Cruz. Insects are marvelous beings with the most amazing talents, their
abilities well beyond that of modern science to emulate. Would that we
could build robots with the ability of the ant! Still I must say that for many
readers this book could prove an unsettling experience. But in truth the
photos are amazing. They are brilliantly colored and sharply focused,
showing the creatures in various poses, eating, mating, being eaten,
fighting, secreting, guarding eggs, etc. And there are some very nice shots
taken through microscopes that reveal wondrous detail.
Clearly "Secret Weapons" is a book for enthusiasts and professionals. Not
only are the scientific names given for each creature along with the
common names, the authors also give schematic drawings of the
elemental composition of each of the chemicals used by the many-legged
creatures! Furthermore there is a chapter on "How to Study Insects and
Their Kin" in which the kinds of equipment (plastic bags, forceps, nets,
vials, hand lenses, scalpels, petri dishes, insect pins, etc.) used by
professionals are not only listed and described but presented in color
photos. Each chapter concludes with scientific journal and book
references for further study.
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