Of Cockroaches and Crickets: Learning to Love Creatures That Skitter and Jump

This creepy and captivating debut from biologist Nischk dives into the world of bugs. “Inconspicuous critters that... we think of as disgusting and annoying if we think of them at all, are often the ones whose stories surprise us most,” contends Nischk as he highlights strange facts about cockroaches and crickets. Cockroaches spend most of their days hiding, Nischk notes, only venturing out at night to look for food, and while they’re not actually immune to nuclear explosions, they are about “ten times as resistant to radiation as we are.” He describes his research on the German cockroach, which revealed that the insects “maintain strong family bonds” that might develop from larvae eating their parents’ excrement. He recounts studying crickets in Ecuador and finding that cricket species sing at different frequencies so they can “avoid misunderstandings when attracting sexual partners.” It’s difficult not to share Nischk’s amazement at his subjects (“A biological treasure slumbers unnoticed in tropical rainforests, and I absolutely wanted to help rescue it from obscurity”), even if some of the material is a bit esoteric. Still, this makes a persuasive case that the “smaller the worlds we can see, the bigger our world becomes.” (Feb.)