Parasites and the Behavior of Animals, by Janice Moore. Oxford University Press Inc., Oxford, U.K. 2002. 315 p. ISBN 0-19-508441-1.
In this excellent addition to the Oxford Series in Ecology and Evolution, Dr. Janice Moore has carved out a rich and exciting story on how and why parasites alter the behavior of their intermediate hosts. It is an entertaining account of the marvels of evolution told through the biological details of weird and wonderful host–parasite associations. Her conversational story-telling style, with personal anecdotes and amusing stories strewn throughout the text, makes the book easy to read. One cannot help but chuckle when reading that her work was cited by the Creation Research Society Quarterly as evidence of divine design or at her use of the Rat King of German fairy tales to explain cercaria morphology. This style of writing allows for brevity because complex ideas can be simplified into elegant...