The Private Life of Spiders | 
| Author: Paul Hillyard
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $18.78
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Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 305170
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 160
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.9
Dimensions (in): 12.7 x 10 x 0.8
ISBN: 0691135525
Dewey Decimal Number: 595.44
EAN: 9780691135526
ASIN: 0691135525
Publication Date: January 3, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
With more than 100 different families and 40,000 individual species, spiders are among the most successful creatures on Earth. Highly adaptable, they live almost everywhere, from equatorial rainforest to Arctic tundra. And they come in a huge range of shapes and sizes, from the tiny Patu digua, measuring less than half a millimeter, to the immense bird-eating tarantula, which can reach a span of eleven inches. In The Private Life of Spiders, spider expert Paul Hillyard takes the reader on a fascinating and richly illustrated tour of the lives of some of the world's most remarkable spiders. The Private Life of Spiders reveals the intriguing behaviors of these complex creatures, from their extraordinary web-spinning skills and hunting strategies to their courtship displays and devoted care for their young. The book also describes other surprising skills of some spiders, such as the ability to cross vast stretches of open water. Written in an engaging style, The Private Life of Spiders also looks at why people are scared of spiders, explains why such fear is generally misplaced, and shows why more needs to be done to protect endangered spiders. - Features spiders from a vast range of habitats around the world
- Includes more than 100 stunning color photographs that capture the beauty and diversity of spiders
- Covers spider anatomy, behavior, reproduction, social organization, and hunting and web construction techniques
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| Customer Reviews:
 Beautiful! July 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'm giving a brief 5-star review to this book to counteract the ridiculous 2-star review from January. No book is perfect and one can quibble over assertions, but only a dull person would object to the size and beautiful illustration of this book. I highly recommend this book to anyone with more than a passing interest in spiders who also appreciated fine photography.
Excellent book for the layman June 26, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book has more detailed information on the amazing variety and complexity of form and behavior for this ancient (300 to 400 million years) family than most non-professionals can absorb and remember. It is replete with stunning, detailed photos of the most interesting and attractive species. It is written in an erudite but straight-forward style, which avoids jargon and academic comlexity.
The reviewer of Jan. 27, 2008, who gave the book 2 stars, posits a number of objections. If you are a professional, or if such academic quibbles seem valid to you, his advice is probably suited to your needs. If you are the typical layman, who would like to know more about these amazing creatures, I recommend this book highly.
 Not a book for my library! January 27, 2008
14 out of 19 found this review helpful
I'm writing this review to provide some balance to the "rave" advance reviews for this book, attributed to respected Arachnologists. The book has some nice photographs, and a good deal of collected information, on the subject of spiders.
In my opinion, however, the large format (including large print or all-capitals print) of this book detracts from its impact. I just prefer neat, compact styles, and don't like to own books with these larger linear dimensions. Because of the large print and wide spacing of lines, there is less content here than the weight of the book would suggest. From a content perspective, there are several references in this book to what I would call "unidirectional evolution." For example, the jumping spiders (Salticidae) are referred to as the "most highly evolved family." In areas where I am most familiar with the subject matter, there are many statements in this book that I would question. For example, to the best of my knowledge it has not been demonstrated that the principal eyes of jumping spiders are used to determine distance. One page has several diagrams of spider anatomy, and both the trochanters and the apical pretarsi of the legs were omitted from these drawings. Many of the photographs are not not identified as to species, locality, or behavioral context. At one point, the author makes a major point in describing "fights to the death" by female "Phidippus rimator" (currently called Phidippus clarus). Since there are no bibliographic references in the text of this book, it is impossible to find where these observations came from.
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