Amy Stewart on why insects bug us

Award-winning nature writer and National Public Radio regular Amy Stewart is on a first-name basis with some of the baddest bugs in the insect kingdom, as she shows in "Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army and Other Diabolical Insects" (Algonquin, $18.95). Combining dark humor, little-known history and goosebump-inducing entomological facts, she takes on more than 100 of our flying, creeping and burrowing worst nightmares. We caught up with Stewart by phone at her home in Eureka, Calif.

Why are we so terrified of bugs?

It makes us jumpy to see some tiny little thing skittering around, and we don't know where it's headed next. For the most part, there is no reason to fear bugs at all. But it is reasonable to be afraid of the 100 or so in "Wicked Bugs."

What's the most deadly of the wicked bugs?

In terms of the number of people it has killed, the mosquito, which has been with us throughout our history. It's a bloodsucker, so it transmits not only malaria but one of every five insect-transmitted diseases. About 500 million people suffer from malaria around the world every year. And it transmits a lot of diseases you've never heard of, like lymphatic filariasis, also called elephantiasis.

You write that typhus-infected body lice were largely responsible for stopping Napoleon's army. What other insect has had such a dramatic effect?

The boll weevil, which wiped out cotton crops, changed the course of history for the South. A lot of plantations were forced out of the cotton business, which strangely was a good thing. Many plantations had to grow peanuts instead, which turned out to be more profitable.

Flour weevils were a huge problem for soldiers in the Civil War. They infested the hardtack the soldiers carried, their only portable food. So much so that the soldiers joked they didn't have to carry their rations, because their rations could walk on their own.

Bedbugs have made headlines the past couple of years.

They're tough to eradicate. Until World War II, having bedbugs was like having houseflies -- they were ubiquitous. It was only when we started using really horrible chemicals that we wiped out bedbugs, along with everything else. Fortunately, we don't use those chemicals anymore, so here they come again.

As a veteran gardener, what was your worst bug bite?

Apart from some fire ants, some biting midges [no-see-ums] and a couple of bee stings, I've never had a devastating bug bite.

It's said that only two things will survive a nuclear holocaust -- Tupperware and cockroaches.

I don't see cockroaches going anywhere. They're "wicked" in that they move germs around and can transmit diseases. They're what's called a "weed species," one of those things that follows humans wherever we go.

Cockroaches and houseflies love our garbage and are uniquely adapted to living around us. They have outsmarted us many times, and I think they will continue to do that.