Super Fly: The Unexpected Lives of the World's Most Successful Insects

Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History and a New York Times Editors Choice Pick

After reading Super Fly, you will never take a fly for granted again. Thank you, Jonathan Balcombe, for reminding us of the infinite marvels of everyday creatures.
--Sy Montgomery, Author of How to Be a Good Creature

From an expert in animal consciousness, a book that will turn the fly on the wall into the elephant in the room.

For most of us, the only thing we know about flies is that they're annoying, and our usual reaction is to try to kill them. In Super Fly, the myth-busting biologist Jonathan Balcombe shows the order Diptera in all of its diversity, illustrating the essential role that flies play in every ecosystem in the world as pollinators, waste-disposers, predators, and food source; and how flies continue to reshape our understanding of evolution. Along the way, he reintroduces us to familiar foes like the fruit fly and mosquito, and gives us the chance to meet their lesser-known cousins like the Petroleum Fly (the only animal in the world that breeds in crude oil) and the Chocolate Midge (the sole pollinator of the Cacao tree). No matter your outlook on our tiny buzzing neighbors, Super Fly will change the way you look at flies forever.

Jonathan Balcombe is the author of four books on animal sentience, including the New York Times bestselling What A Fish Knows, which was nominated for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Award for Science Writing. He has worked for years as a researcher and educator with the Humane society to show us the consciousness of other creatures, and here he takes us to the farthest reaches of the animal kingdom.

Author: Jonathan Balcombe
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 05/25/2021
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.30w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780143134275


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 03/15/2021
Booklist 05/01/2021 pg. 9
Kirkus Reviews 05/15/2021

About the Author
Jonathan Balcombe was born in England, and has lived in New Zealand, the United States, and Canada. A biologist with a PhD in ethology, the study of animal behavior, he is the author of four popular science books on the inner lives of animals, as well as over 60 scientific papers and book chapters on animal behavior and animal protection. Formerly Department Chair for Animal Studies with the Humane Society University, and Director of Animal Sentience with The Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy, he also serves as an Associate Editor for the journal Animal Sentience, and he teaches a course in animal sentience for the Viridis Graduate Institute. Jonathan currently lives in southern Ontario, where in his spare time he enjoys biking, baking, birding, Bach, and trying to understand the squirrels in his neighborhood.