The insect world’s labyrinthine universe is in severe jeopardy. Scientists have discovered stunning population losses, with the United Nations projecting that half a million species may be extinct by the midway of this century.
In writing about this silently growing disaster for my new book, The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires that Run the World, I investigated how a shortage of insects jeopardizes food safety, likely deprives us of new treatments, and destroys the ecosystems on which we all rely to sustain life. We are creating hell for our closest pals on the globe through habitat loss, pesticide usage, and local weather change. But there’s another reason to be concerned about the bug disaster: their incredible characteristics and abilities. Some look to be from another universe, such as the butterfly with a timepiece on the tip of its penis.
Here are five of the most intriguing things I uncovered about them.
Bees are capable of almost anything
Most of us are aware of the critical pollination role that bees play in ensuring a steady supply of fresh fruits and vegetables. However, experts have discovered a variety of abilities in bees that will astound you.
Honeybees understand the concept of zero, can add and subtract numbers, and can even be trained to detect land mines more effectively than sniffer canines. Their pollination services have become so valuable in the United States that there is a growing jail operation among “bee rustlers” to steal beehives in California’s rural heartland.
Meanwhile, certain bumblebees can fly to a height of 5,500 meters (18,000 feet) above sea level (just short of Mount Kilimanjaro’s summit), can be taught to play soccer, and can remember both good and bad events, implying they have awareness.
All of this requires a lot of energy. If a human male ate a Mars bar, he would burn up the energy in around an hour; a bumblebee of the same size would utilize the same energy in about 30 seconds.
READ MORE: Death, According to Hidetaka Miyazaki, Is a Feature, Not a Bug.
Beetles have the abilities of little superheroes
The planet is overrun with beetles — over 350,000 species and counting – rather than rats, lambs, or even humans. Some have adapted to humanity’s alteration of the earth, such as weevils that eat our grain.
Others are notable in their own right. A horned dung beetle is so strong that if it were a human, it could keep six double-decker buses aloft. A water beetle known as Regimbartia attenuata may even survive being eaten by a frog by swimming through the amphibian’s belly and crawling out the posterior.
Some will fiercely defend mosquitoes
Mosquitoes are frequently seen as both an irritation and a potentially dangerous threat. Indeed, there are concerns that the threat of malaria and dengue fever may emerge as we continue to warm the planet to mosquitoes’ liking.
However, other entomologists have positive feelings towards mosquitoes, citing their pollination of certain flowers and their little-known environmental activity, in which they aid cycle vitamins via soils and flora and provide food for creatures further up the food chain, such as frogs and birds. Eliminating all mosquitos would result in a chain reaction of negative consequences.
Cockroaches, no matter how stunning, are despised
Cockroaches are the only insects that equal mosquitoes in human dislike. There are thousands of kinds of cockroaches in woods, but we are more likely to encounter the two – American and German – that have adapted to our homes.
These species are, in and of themselves, wonders. Slow-motion camera footage demonstrates that the cockroach may smash through partitions at high speeds with no loss of momentum before scaling upward. These wonderful creatures can fit between crevices as narrow as a little coin, chew with a force 50 times their body weight, and survive for two weeks after being beheaded.
Insects have shaped human history
Insects aren’t honored in the same way that horses, tigers, or dolphins are, but they’ve played interesting cameo parts in our history.
One historian referred to the common marsh mosquito as the “founding mother” of the United States because of malaria that decimated the British forces and contributed to its surrender during the American Revolution. A century later, the introduction of new beehive bins increased field productivity and changed agriculture.
What do you think the main animal in the home was? Is it a monkey? Maybe a dog or a cat? A fruit fly was pushed past the atmosphere in a US army rocket in 1947 to test the possible impact of cosmic radiation on astronauts.
Moths are wrongly stereotyped
Moths are sometimes vilified as powdery vandals that like eating their way through our clothes. This is fundamentally unfair because moth larvae, not adults, eat on clothing, and even then, only a couple of the thousands of moth species do so.
Wasps should be regarded with caution
Wasps aren’t just scavengers of idyllic picnics. They are also important pollinators of plants and predators of bugs that eat our most valuable flowers and crops.
Paper wasps may also understand transitive inference, which is a logical link in which if A is greater than B and B is greater than C, then A must be greater than C. These wasps can also distinguish between various individual wasps by looking at their faces.
Insects are used in the production of chocolate and ice cream.
Do you like chocolate? So, be thankful for the little midge that pollinates the cocoa plant. Do you want to live in an ice cream-filled world? Then you’ll need pollinators to ensure that dairy cows have enough hay to eat.
Crickets may become the food of the future in the long term.
Insects have been on the table for decades in communities spanning Asia, Africa, and South America, yet many western diners are wary of them. That may change when the damaging environmental impact of meat consumption drives people to switch to insects such as crickets, which can be grown in large numbers with little resulting air pollution.
Crickets may be flavored with chili, while ants can be dipped in lemon. These are high-protein snacks that may fundamentally transform our connection with and admiration for insects.
People will exhibit an interest in insects in unusual ways.
Winston Churchill’s butterfly collection helped him cope with his grief. Walter Rothschild, the banking family’s scion, enjoyed dressing up fleas in costumes. Milkweed is planted by people throughout North America to help monarch butterflies. In Australia, giant burrowing cockroaches are kept as pets.
It’s lazy to dismiss insects as pests or unimportant. Many of us recognize how important they are to our planet. That feeling will have to be increased and channeled if we are to avert the worst calamity they have ever faced.
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