The rise of this great dynasty was founded on the most surprising diet: insects. David Attenborough, The Life of Mammals II: Insect Hunters ***** BBC 2002
Shrews: they hunted in sets at night when most of the dinosaurs were sleeping. ibid.
The old joke that asks, How do hedgehogs mate? was right all along. The answer is of course with great care. ibid.
The rise of social insects sixty million years after the first mammals was a landmark in evolution. ibid.
Anteaters and Pangolins have different ancestors. ibid.
Why change the design of the perfect termite eater? ibid.
Bats: Flight and the ability to catch insects on the wing is an extraordinary achievement. ibid.
Our world is not always the same. Hidden from our view lies a different world: creatures utterly unlike us. Almost alien. Yet they are more numerous than any other group on the planet. David Attenborough: Micro Monsters I: Conflict ***** Sky 2013
Over 80% of all animal species on this planet are arthropods. ibid.
Centipedes: they are meat-eaters ... there are over 8,000 species of them. ibid.
Chemical warfare like this is widespread in the world of the micro-monsters. ibid.
Bombardier Beetles: hot gas and caustic chemicals ... produced by a reaction in its abdomen. ibid.
Some bugs have such perfect camouflage they are virtually invisible. ibid.
Assassin bug: sucks its victims dry and glues their empty husks on to its back. ibid.
Ever since they first appeared on land the arthropods have been fighting one another … Around 10% of arthropods eat other arthropods. David Attenborough, Micro Monsters II: Predator
This tangle of silk is home to one of Australia’s most feared spiders – the highly venomous red-back. ibid.
Courtship is often complex, protracted, fascinating and for some even brutal. David Attenborough, Micro Monsters III: Courtship
Goliaths [beetles] are among the strongest insects in the world. ibid.
There are over two thousand species of scorpion. ibid.
Golden orb web spiders live for only a year: mating is the culmination of their lives. David Attenborough: Micro Monsters IV: Reproduction
Butterflies: one kind of body for growing, and another for reproduction. ibid.
A small minority look after them – they become families. David Attenborough, Micro Monsters V: Family
This cockroach will live for eight years or more. ibid.
Australia: green ants live in groups of up to half a million. ibid.
The workers use the silk to stitch the leaves together. ibid.
Paper wasps: the queen is constantly under threat from her daughters. ibid.
Bumble bees: there are about two hundred species of them. ibid.
The ability to live in immense colonies: that has enabled them to hunt en masse, to build huge constructions for their homes, and to dominate their surroundings. ibid.
The most revolutionary has been the ability to live in immense colonies. David Attenborough, Micro Monsters VI: Colony
Termites: castles … can be nine metres tall. ibid.
The arthropods are the most successful kind of animal on this planet. ibid.
This planet is more theirs than ours. ibid.
They will have to deal with unpredictable animals, and temperamental cameras, set up shooting in three continents, and battle tropical storms. Making David Attenborough’s Micro Monsters, Sky 1 2013
Arthropods includes spiders, insects, and scorpions, and make up more than 80% of the Earth’s animals. ibid.
The cube rig can magnify pictures up to 50,000%. ibid.
Praying Mantis: even in the throes of death the male has succeeded in mating with the female. ibid.
The Mafia of the insect world: the common American cockroach. ibid.
The deadly Sydney Funnelweb – a spider so poisonous its venom can kill a human in fifteen minutes. ibid.
Insects: their wings are marvels of natural engineering. David Attenborough’s Conquest of the Skies I: First to Fly, Sky 2015
One of the biggest in the world – the Atlas beetle. ibid.
Flight has enabled the insects as a whole to become an astonishing global success. ibid.
A Powdered Quaker. Get that for a name ... Victorian clergy named these moths ... Even a True Lover’s Knot. Bill Oddie, night film cited Night on Film: An A-Z of the Dark, BBC 2011
James W Tutt: he was about to apply Darwin’s ideas to resolve one of the environmental mysteries of the industrial age. James R Tutt was an enthusiastic Darwinist who devoted his life to the study of moths. Devoted, enthusiastic, more than 900 articles, mainly on moths; 20 books – moths again. But he’s remembered for just one thing he noticed about one moth ... the Peppered moth ... the darker version was now very well camouflaged and it thrived and multiplied. Tutt suggested that by polluting the environment man was affecting natural selection for the Peppered moth. Andrew Marr, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, BBC 2009
Aaah, summer – that long anticipated stretch of lazy, lingering days, free of responsibility and rife with possibility. It’s a time to hunt for insects, master handstands, practice swimming strokes, conquer trees, explore nooks and crannies, and make new friends. Darell Hammond
Planting native species in our gardens and communities is increasingly important, because indigenous insects, birds and wildlife rely on them. Over thousands, and sometimes millions, of years they have co-evolved to live in local climate and soil conditions. David Suzuki
If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos. E O Wilson
Ants are the dominant insects of the world, and they’ve had a great impact on habitats almost all over the land surface of the world for more than 50-million years. E O Wilson
We hope that, when the insects take over the world, they will remember with gratitude how we took them along on all our picnics. Bill Vaughan
Some big insect flew in and began walking on the table. I don’t know what insect it was, but it was brown, shining, and rich in structures. In the city the big universal chain of insects gets thin, but where there’s a leaf or two it’ll be represented. Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March
And the roaches. The roaches were so bold in his flat that turning on the lights did not startle them. They waved their three-inch antennas as if to say, Hey, puto, turn that shit off. Junot Díaz, Drown
Insects are major players in nature’s recycling effort, and in nature a corpse is simply organic matter to be recycled. Left to its own devices, nature quickly populates a corpse with a diverse community of organisms, all dedicated to reducing the body to its basic components. M Lee Goff
We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act. Charles Darwin
I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars. Charles Darwin
God in His wisdom made the fly
And then forgot to tell us why. Ogden Nash, The Fly
Some primal termite knocked on wood;
and tasted it, and found it good.
That is why your Cousin May
fell through the parlor floor today. Ogden Nash
If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito. Betty Reese
Large flocks of butterflies, all kinds of happy insects, seem to be in a perfect fever of joy and sportive gladness. John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf