Summary
Presented as a 30-stop journey, this book roams across mainland France and Corsica, meeting the insects that inhabit them. From the spectacular Spanish moon moth of the Alpine pinewoods to the endemic grasshopper of the Crau steppe -by way of bumblebees, red wood ants, and the great blue rose chafer - it takes us through a wide range of environments: pastures, peat bogs, farmland and forests, Mediterranean scrub… as well as towns and human-made habitats.
Each paired portrait of an insect and its environment explores a current ecological issue. The presence - or decline - of a species can reveal much about the health of ecosystems. Why do some insects proliferate, while others come under pressure? How do insects shape landscapes? Where can they find refuge from extinction? And how can certain species even benefit from wildfires?
This book is an invitation to discover emblematic insects—whether rare or common—across our regions. All aboard for this naturalist’s tour de France!
Table of contents
Foreword
Stage 1: The false return of the cold-peatland damselfly
Stage 2: A giant fossilized dragonfly in a coal mine in Auvergne
Stage 3: Life of the Rhône insects is not always smooth sailing
Stage 4: The Spanish moon moth, a treasure of the southern mountains
Stage 5: The Corsican pine hawk-moth, a flagship species of the island’s endemic fauna
Stage 6: Do not disturb the nesting sites of the wall mason bee!
Stage 7: Follow the truffle fly in Provence!
Stage 8: The great blue rose chafer of Païolive forest
Stage 9: A health crisis among the silkworms of the Cévennes: And Pasteur became a biologist
Stage 10: The lace-winged predatory bush cricket of the garrigue
Stage 11: The grasshopper of the Crau steppe, Europe’s last steppe
Stage 12: The buffalo treehopper in the vineyards of Languedoc
Stage 13: The poisoning of dung beetles in the pastures of Larzac
Stage 14: The false slug of the Catalan ant hills
Stage 15: The resurrection of the bone skipper fly
Stage 16: Jewel beetles, infrared, and forest fires
Stage 17: The yellow-legged termite from Louisiana conquers the East
Stage 18: Saving the dune scarab beetle
Stage 19: The decline of bumblebees and the drop in clover yields
Stage 20: The Asian longhorn beetle, a hitchhiker in the city
Stage 21: The beetle that stopped the highway bulldozers
Stage 22: Carpet beetles on the attack of insect collections
Stage 23: The Two “amazon” stick insects of the Brittany Peninsula
Stage 24: The cynipid wasp and black gall ink
Stage 25: The amber owlfly of the Seine valley slopes
Stage 26: The Paris metro cricket
Stage 27: The green aphid of sugar beet and the neonicotinoid controversy
Stage 28: The pine processionary moth, a sentinel of climate change
Stage 29: The mounds of red wood ants in the Vosges forests
Stage 30: The European spruce bark beetle and the decline of hillside spruce
Conclusion
Selected Bibliography
Index of Species
