That Gunk on Your Car: Unique Guide to Insects of the United States - Softcover

Hostetler, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 089815961X ISBN 13: 9780898159615

Publisher: Ten Speed Press, 1997

Synopsis

Helps identify the splats left behind by insects hitting the windshield and provides facts about their habitats

About this title

From the Publisher

Review from the Union-Tribune
Anybody who has ever traveled in a car at speeds over say, 3 miles per hour knoew the sight and sound: the slapping thunk followed by a variously colored splat. Another bug bites the dust-- or more specifically, the windshield. Most of us tend to look beyond the gore . Or maybe just around it. Not Hostetler, whose Midwestern childhood was reportedly spent trying to tip over sleeping cows and dreaming up ways to work with Marlin Perkins(of"Animal Kingdom"fame). Given that should we be suprised that such a fellow would find squished bugs to be infinately fascinating? Probably not. What is suprising is just how interesting dead bug remains-on-glass turn out to be. Hostetler, who has a doctorate in zoology, provides detailed descriptions of various insect gunk, completewith color illustrations and schematics. The collision, for example, of a horsefly (Tabanus americanus) with a 1984 Corolla (Automobilus japanicus) produces a dirty white, oblong glop that is roughly 20 to 70 millimeters in length with a smear of red in the middle only if the fly was full of animal blood. Good stuff to know and incidentally, worthy of a 1997 winner of the Ig Nobel Award for Improbable Research.

From the Author

Identify insect splats that end-up on your car!
This unique insect guide is meant to entertain and educate the family about the fascinating world of insects. Place the book in your glove compartment, and when you have an (unfortunate) encounter with an insect, you can use this guide to identify the insect splat and also learn a lot about the insect. The book contains colorful illustrations of insects and splats and lots of natural history information about insects. It even contains games about insects to play while driving down the road.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ten Speed Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 089815961X
• ISBN 13: 9780898159615
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 104