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| Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures | 
 enlarge | Author: Bill Schutt
Publisher: Harmony
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $11.80
You Save: $14.15 (55%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (4 reviews)
Sales Rank: 276413
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 5.7 x 1.3
ISBN: 0307381129
Dewey Decimal Number: 591.53
EAN: 9780307381125
ASIN: 0307381129
Publication Date: October 14, 2008
Release Date: October 14, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
For centuries, blood feeders have inhabited our nightmares and horror stories, as well as the shadowy realms of scientific knowledge. In Dark Banquet, zoologist Bill Schutt takes readers on an entertaining voyage into the world of some of nature?s strangest creatures?the sanguivores. Using a sharp eye and mordant wit, Schutt makes a remarkably persuasive case that vampire bats, leeches, ticks, bed bugs, and other vampires are as deserving of our curiosity as warmer and fuzzier species are?and that many of them are even worthy of conservation.
Schutt takes us from rural Trinidad to the jungles of Brazil to learn about some of the most reviled, misunderstood, and marvelously evolved animals on our planet: vampire bats. Only recently has fact begun to disentangle itself from fiction concerning these remarkable animals, and Schutt delves into the myths and misconceptions surrounding them.
Examining the substance that sustains nature?s vampires, Schutt reveals just how little we actually knew about blood until well into the twentieth century. We revisit George Washington on his deathbed to learn how ideas about blood and the supposedly therapeutic value of bloodletting, first devised by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, survived into relatively modern times. Schutt also tracks the history of medicinal leech use. Once employed by the tens of millions to drain perceived excesses of blood, today the market for these ancient creatures is booming once again?but for very different reasons.
Among the other blood feeders we meet in these pages are bed bugs, or ?ninja insects,? which are making a creepy resurgence in posh hotels and well-kept homes near you. In addition, Dark Banquet details our dangerous and sometimes deadly encounters with ticks, chiggers, and mites (the latter implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder?currently devastating honey bees worldwide). Then there are the truly weird?vampire finches. And if you thought piranha were scary, some people believe that the candiru (or willy fish) is the best reason to avoid swimming in the Amazon.
Enlightening, alarming, and appealing to our delight in the bizarre, Dark Banquet peers into a part of the natural world to which we are, through our blood, inextricably linked.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Interesting but scattered November 17, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I purchased this book because I read an excellent excerpt in the news magazine, The Week. That excerpt was from the first and best portion of the book, the part on vampire bats. In that section, which covers the first 95 pages, the author is clearly in his element (he is a mammologist who studies, or has studied vampire bats); Schutt gives a lot of detail on vampire natural history in an accessible and witty manner intertwined with personal tales from his vampire field and laboratory studies. Also included are some interesting tidbits on the interface between vampire bats and myth/sociology. This is all great.
The next chapter is on leeches, and here Schutt wanders off into the wilderness. He tells us precious little about the natural history of leeches and prattles on for 50+ pages about the fixation medicine had with leeches through the centuries. These stories form a hodgepodge with no apparent goal other than trying to be sensational.
After that there is a rapid series on bedbugs, ticks, mites and the such. Some of this is interesting, but again, the book focuses predominately on these animals' effects on human health rather than the animals themselves. Near the end, he entirely gives into the sensational and discusses the Candiru, a group of small catfish that feed off the blood of other fish by attaching to their gills. However, the actual lifestyle of the Candiru is merely an aside in the chapter, which is almost entirely about the myth that these creatures like to ascend varies orifices of the human body. Although I found this bit amusing, I found myself wondering, how did we get from a detailed natural history of vampires to Candiru mythology.
Additionally, the author's incomplete understanding of medicine is frequently revealed, and when discussing medicine, he strays away from his scientific voice into a sensationalistic one. For instance, his statement that "our 99% germ-free culture has resulted in hypersensitive immune systems" is incorrect (there is some thought that lack of exposure to allergens, such as pollen and dust, when very young is the culprit... not lack of exposure to viruses and bacteria). Furthermore, this statement is a surprising bit of pseudoscience from a scientist--- What the heck does a "99% germ-free culture" mean?
So, this is really the tale of two books. The first is a very enjoyable science-for-the-layman discussion of vampire bats. I would have rated this part 5-Stars. The second portion of the book would get 3 Stars at best in my estimation. I wish the author had stuck to his area of expertise, and written more about vampires and skipped the rest.
Steven Mlodinow
entertaining tale October 26, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Some of the creatures featured in the book are what you'd expect to see--vampire bats, leeches, ticks, etc. Those are the traditional bloodsucking fiends (to borrow a Christopher Moore book title) that we worry about. Other creatures don't pop into mind as readily--bedbugs, mites, and the like--but when described we can nod our heads and say "Yes, Indeed!" or the like. But there are also a couple of chapters on the old practice of bleeding and the newer practice of transfusion. These seem a bit out of place, unless perhaps you consider doctors to be "blood-feeding creatures".
In addition, there's a chapter on the candiru, a small variety of Amazonian catfish. It's interesting, to be sure, and quite funny, but it doesn't seem all that relevant to the book. The candiru attaches itself to the gills of other fishes and scrapes a living. So there's a blood connection, but it's rather peripheral. If you include candiru, why not also include lampreys? Lampreys certainly are blood-feeders, but they aren't in a group that worries us humans--at least not as regards providing a blood meal. Many of the creatures in the book do not feed on humans: there are bird-feeding vampires, for example. But the bird-feeding vampire bats are a member of a family that could feed on humans. I don't recall anything about human victims, but we can certainly provide dinner.
There are some absences: fleas get short shrift here, and I'm not sure why. So you get a mixture in the book--I would have preferred less on medical bleeding and cupping, perhaps more on fleas and some other creatures. There are lots of drawings--but unfortunately, a great many have no captions. There are (usually) explanations in the text, but more captions would be helpful. Another book of a similar nature (if you can find a copy) is Michael Andrews' fine The Life That Lives on Man. This is more about ticks, mites, fleas, bacteria, etc, and not about vampire bats or candiru. Still--Schutt's book is a very nice addition to your library--well-written, amusing, enjoyable.
 Good writing that tells many interesting facts October 20, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
The mention of sanguivores generally evokes a repulsive response from most of us. The subject matter of Dark Banquet is precisely these creatures that stroke our natural fears. The book is not purely a scientific text, but a melange of science, scientific history and personal anecdotes. The first part takes readers from Trinidad to Brazil, and along the journey, one learns about vampire bats. With over eleven hundred bat species, only three consume blood. One specie, Trinidadian white-winged vampire bat, only feeds on the blood of chickens, and does so by imitating the behavior of chicks to get to its prey).
The second part opens by taking the reader back to George Washington's last days, and suggests that the elder statesman may have bleed to death by doctors employing bloodletting (a common treatment during the day). One learns that bloodletting was common until the early twentieth century! In this section one learns about the role blood plays in our bodies. One is also treated to ancient and modern medical techniques that use blood. Examples of these include using leeches to draw blood in ancient times and using the natural chemicals from these creatures as anti-coagulants (or blood thinners) in contemporary times.
The third part introduces the reader to a host of other sanguivores such as the bed bug, tick, mosquito, chigger, mite, hookworm, assassin bug, vampire finch, and candiru (blood-sucking fish found in the Amazon River). One learns of the diseases they carry (bubonic plague, rabies, scrub typhus, tick vectors) and of the psychological condition "in which the victim believes that tiny biting or bloodsucking creatures are crawling over his or her body."
This book makes a passionate appeal that these creatures are worthy of study, and even worthy of conservation! It brings into focus the benefits that our ecology derives from their presence, and the uses these creatures have in contemporary medicine and research.
Scientific discussion is kept to a minimum and the writing style is witty and fluid. The illustrations do not have captions, but this could be because I have is an uncorrected proof and the captions are included in the actual publication.
Armchair Interviews says: Zoologist Bill Schutt has studied bats in Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Brazil, Trinidad, and the United States.
A fun and entertaining read October 16, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Massively entertaining and educational at the same time! Bill really knows how to paint a picture in your mind of the experiences he has had and blood suckers he has seen. A fun read and highly recommended!
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