A book on grasshoppers and crickets by Professor Ted Benton from the Department of Sociology has been picked out by leading nature writer Robert Macfarlane as one of his books of 2012 in a review in The Guardian.

Grasshoppers and Crickets, published by Collins New Naturalists, has also led to Professor Benton being awarded a David Bellamy Award from the British Naturalists Association for outstanding work as a field naturalist.

Macfarlane said in his Guardian review: “Ted Benton's entomological opus Grasshoppers and Crickets led me into the weird world of British orthoptera, with their edible nuptial gifts, 'mate guarding', harems and extraordinarily complex songs. No field or meadow will seem or sound the same again.”

Professor Benton’s academic research interests include ecology and he is a Fellow of the Essex Sustainability Institute, but he is also an active field naturalist and ecologist.

Grasshoppers and Crickets is the first in the New Naturalist series to include a DVD featuring exclusive video and audio material. In the book he looks at the appearance, variations, behaviour, habitat, life-cycles and distribution of all the native British species of bush-crickets, crickets, groundhoppers and grasshoppers. The book pays special attention to a key area of evolutionary thought that has stimulated an international research focus on grasshoppers and crickets.