In this eye-opening and entertaining work of popular science in the spirit of The Mosquito, Entangled Life, and The Book of Eels, a leading behavioural ecologist transforms our understanding of wasps, exploring these much-maligned insects' secret world, their incredible diversity and complex social lives, and revealing how they hold our fragile ecosystem in balance.

Explains what insects are and how they differ from other animals, with an overview of the life cycle of a variety of insects, including ants, bees, cockroaches, grasshoppers, dragonflies, and butterflies.