The Wasp That Brainwashed the Caterpillar Paperback – 21 Sept. 2017

Wonderful book, well written, humorous and an education in the wonders of this planet.

Nature is not only red in tooth and claw; some of the solutions that have evolved to the problem of survival and reproduction are actually quite gruesome to read about. I had to skip a few chapters. But the book certainly makes the mind boggle! It is unforgettable, I'll give you that. It's a kind of factual horror story.

Very excited to work my way through this book with my little Niece.

Excellent read from the view of an evolutionarist

This book has been a great adventure into nature, discovering how naive we are when we consider ourselves the pinnacle of evolution! So many different strategies, so many intelligent forms of life under the sun!

How does animals tall, eat, trick the prey to survive all written in this. Well written book and can be read by all

I found this book to be very engaging and entertaining! It goes over dozens of examples of interesting animals, taking care to make each seem interesting and maintaining the theme that biology is not accidental or magical. There are tons of side notes and extra facts that are exciting and do not detract from the narrative, and all of the animals seem well selected and well researched. The author takes an informal tone, making the factually dense text an easy read. My only gripe with the book is that the author chose to use illustrations instead of pictures of each organism. I understand why she did, but a few of them are misleading (see horny frog and geography cone snail) and I found myself frequently taking breaks from the book to look up pictures of each animal. I still believe the book deserves 5 stars, however, because of how well written and informative it is. Many books on this topic--weird creatures--fail to take into account the selective forces involved in the evolution of the creatures it discusses, but The Wasp That Brainwashed the Caterpillar allows evolution to take center stage.