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Trade in Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage ** Winner of the Warwick Prize for Writing 2011 ** for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £1.05, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Plus, get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
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'Forbes sees with lovely clarity that nature, like art, is a bricoleur.' - Veronica Horwell, The Guardian. 'An intriguing and fluent narrative... Forbes's emphasis makes this a distinctively British story.' - Marek Kohn, The Independent. 'He tells brilliantly this exciting and colourful story with good anecdotes, bizarre characters and intriguing evidence.' - Tim Neward, Financial Times. 'In this excellent and wide-ranging book, Forbes makes the hidden histories of science recognisable.' - Leena Lindstrom, Nature. --The Guardian, The Independent, Financial Times, Nature
Product Description
Nature has perfected the art of deception. Thousands of creatures all over the world - including butterflies, moths, fish, birds, insects and snakes - have honed and practised camouflage over hundreds of millions of years. Imitating other animals or their surroundings, nature's fakers use mimicry to protect themselves, to attract and repel, to bluff and warn, to forage and to hide. The advantages of mimicry are obvious - but how does 'blind' nature do it? And how has humanity learnt to profit from nature's ploys? 'Dazzled and Deceived' tells the unique and fascinating story of mimicry and camouflage in science, art, warfare and the natural world. Discovered in the 1850s by the young English naturalists Henry Walter Bates and Alfred Russel Wallace in the Amazonian rainforest, the phenomenon of mimicry was seized upon as the first independent validation of Darwin's theory of natural selection. But mimicry and camouflage also created a huge impact outside the laboratory walls. Peter Forbes' cultural history links mimicry and camouflage to art, literature, military tactics and medical cures across the twentieth century, and charts its intricate involvement with the dispute between evolution and creationism.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a deep book about superficial appearance. About harmless insects dressed up as wasps in black and yellow stripes; about why black and yellow stripes are the best way to dress if you really are a venomous wasp, and about how to be invisible or camouflaged from wildlife to battleships.
A central theme is the genetics and evolution of butterfly mimics - some butterflies are genuinely poisonous to birds but others, totally harmless species that live in the same area, mimic these with identical wing colours and pattern. The genetics of a group of these insects has been unravelled and is described.
I found this a bit heavy going as I'm only just updating my 1960s genetics education, but fascinating stuff. Thank goodness we have such books, as the wonder and fascination of the natural world as genetic techniques reveal it provides the mirror image of the natural history programmes on UK television. David Attenborough gives us the pictures and story around the planet and a host of science writers is now showing us the equally beautiful and stunning 'works' under the surface.
I found this book thought-provoking, not just because it ranges from science to art (artists designing paint schemes for ship camouflage) but in its fleshing out the way evolution works. In 1932 W. H. Auden wrote (about the political landscape of the time)
"Some possible dream, long coiled in the ammonite's slumber
Is uncurling ....."
Just so; the author shows how the genetics of a butterfly mimic hark back to its ancestors as the old gene sequences 'uncurl'. Thought-provoking stuff.
I wish the illustrations in the book were more numerous and placed in the text instead of the old-fashioned block of plates centrally. That all the pictures of butterflies had been put together with clear labels which would have helped me with the hard bits. And I got a bit impatient with the chapters on the navy and wanted to get back to wild life, but that's just me.
Overall I would highly recommend it to anyone who already has a smattering of the new evo devo genetics.
A central theme is the genetics and evolution of butterfly mimics - some butterflies are genuinely poisonous to birds but others, totally harmless species that live in the same area, mimic these with identical wing colours and pattern. The genetics of a group of these insects has been unravelled and is described.
I found this a bit heavy going as I'm only just updating my 1960s genetics education, but fascinating stuff. Thank goodness we have such books, as the wonder and fascination of the natural world as genetic techniques reveal it provides the mirror image of the natural history programmes on UK television. David Attenborough gives us the pictures and story around the planet and a host of science writers is now showing us the equally beautiful and stunning 'works' under the surface.
I found this book thought-provoking, not just because it ranges from science to art (artists designing paint schemes for ship camouflage) but in its fleshing out the way evolution works. In 1932 W. H. Auden wrote (about the political landscape of the time)
"Some possible dream, long coiled in the ammonite's slumber
Is uncurling ....."
Just so; the author shows how the genetics of a butterfly mimic hark back to its ancestors as the old gene sequences 'uncurl'. Thought-provoking stuff.
I wish the illustrations in the book were more numerous and placed in the text instead of the old-fashioned block of plates centrally. That all the pictures of butterflies had been put together with clear labels which would have helped me with the hard bits. And I got a bit impatient with the chapters on the navy and wanted to get back to wild life, but that's just me.
Overall I would highly recommend it to anyone who already has a smattering of the new evo devo genetics.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a wonderful, fascinating tour of mimicry - how do animals, through the blind process of evolution, come to resemble toxic species to avoid being eaten? How do they 'know' what they should evolve to look like? Taking a long look at the history of butterfly biology and taxonomy, this book explains the science in depth, while never losing sight of the sheer curious fascination of evolution in action. It does help to have an awareness of biology and the workings of genetic theory - but only in the sense of having a sense of the process through which genes are passed on. Peter Forbes is a great companion - entertaining, learned and diverse.
He describes the evolution of camoflague in animals, insects and the adopted camoflague of humans in battle. I loved the history of dazzle ships, having heard of them but having no knowledge of them at all. Fascinating. In fact, the military parts were equally captivating as the biology. Truly a thoroughly-researched and well-told tale.
He describes the evolution of camoflague in animals, insects and the adopted camoflague of humans in battle. I loved the history of dazzle ships, having heard of them but having no knowledge of them at all. Fascinating. In fact, the military parts were equally captivating as the biology. Truly a thoroughly-researched and well-told tale.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The first two impressions I had of this book where that it was somewhat slow to start, and that it was obsessed with butterflies. Despite a small butterfly being just one illustration among many on book's dust jacket the coverage of butterflies was relentless. For brief moments one seemed to escape them but they just kept coming back.
The butterflies receded somewhat in the middle part of the book which digs into dazzle stripes and disputes over wartime camouflage, but that's just a ruse, suddenly they are back and dominate the book again till the end.
However there is in fact a point to their dominance and if you can put up with them swarming through the book you will be well rewarded.
The butterflies receded somewhat in the middle part of the book which digs into dazzle stripes and disputes over wartime camouflage, but that's just a ruse, suddenly they are back and dominate the book again till the end.
However there is in fact a point to their dominance and if you can put up with them swarming through the book you will be well rewarded.
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