Book Reviews

"The Smaller Majority represents the best kind of nature writing: by a scientific expert of the subject, beautifully illustrated, and with striking, original examples."
   --Edward O. Wilson

"Piotr Naskrecki is a master at portraying miniature worlds. He combines two skills that are rarely found in one person: as a conservation biologist, he can speak about his subjects with authority and conviction; as a photographer, he makes them come alive with astonishing close-ups. This book is a treasure house of images and information about a world most of us are barely aware of."
   --Frans Lanting, photographer-in-residence, National Geographic Society, and author of Jungles and Eye to Eye

"Imagine Gulliver just back from Lilliput. That is the entirely pleasurable feeling a reader will have after traveling through The Smaller Majority, a page-turner that calls attention to the '90% of known species...smaller than a human finger.' Among the spineless wonders captured in macrophotos are giraffe weevils, tiger beetles, ant lions, shovel-snouted lizards and even a ghost-crab, dancing...The Smaller Majority, vividly written as well as shot by Mr. Nasrecki, an insect biologist, delivers itself of any number of astonishing facts...Small is beautiful--and powerful, too.
--Patti Hagan, WALL STREET JOURNAL

"This volume celebrates the 'noncharismatic' mesofauna of tropical terrestrial ecosystems. In place of the images of birds and mammals that fill most collections of natural history photography, the author offers portraits of insects, arachnids, flatworms, and amphibians. With a few exceptions--such as island-dwelling coconut crabs and caecilians (subterranean legless amphibians)--the featured organisms would fit within a matchbox."
--SCIENCE

"It's often said that you should buy books of gorgeous, light-saturated photographs for the images alone. Naskrecki's work does contain stunning and unusual nature photographs, even more striking for their subject matter. These photographs of mites, katydids, grasshoppers, lizards display life at the smallest scale ('smaller than a human finger'), and we are fortunate for Naskrecki's patience. It's impossible to tell how he took these head-on shots of bugs, views of one insect devouring another or of frogs' eyelids, but the result is beautiful. Not only the photographs are valuable: the writing also shines. Naskrecki's exuberant, expert knowledge of this microscopic world has been distilled down to the most arresting details. Crisp, enjoyable prose, clearly explains complex biological processes. Naskrecki wants to raise awareness of the perils of extinction and habitat loss, but he also wants to reawaken a childish curiosity and delight in the small wonders of the natural world."
--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY