Clouds of insects danced and buzzed in the golden autumn light, and the air was full of the piping of the song-birds. Long glinting dragon-flies shot across the path, or hung tremulous with gauzy wings and gleaming bodies. Arthur Conan Doyle, The White Company
When the moon shall have faded out from the sky, and the sun shall shine at noonday a dull cherry red, and the seas shall be frozen over, and the icecap shall have crept downward to the equator from either pole ... when all the cities shall have long been dead and crumbled into dust, and all life shall be on the last verge of extinction on this globe; then, on a bit of lichen, growing on the bald rocks beside the eternal snows of Panama, shall be seated a tiny insect, preening its antennae in the glow of the worn-out sun, the sole survivor of animal life on this our earth – a melancholy bug. William Jacob Holland, The Moth Book, 1903
Spin and die,
To live again as butterfly. Christina Georgina Rossetti, The Caterpillar
Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragonfly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Silent Noon
I’ve watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly! indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless! – not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again. William Wordsworth, To a Butterfly
The Creator, if He exists, has a special preference for beetles. J B S Haldane, report of lecture 7th April 1951
Altruism: In a world driven by competition why are some animals altruistic? Termites for instance cooperate relentlessly, building vast mounds on the African plane. Armand Marie LeRoi, What Darwin Didn’t Know, BBC 2009
This highly regimented move by hundreds of thousands of individuals is a typically impressive achievement of the social insects. Bill Hamilton, The Human Animal, BBC Horizon 1977
They’re called compass termites – you can always in the desert tell which direction north/south is by looking for a compass termite nest. Richard Dawkins, Lecture 2: Designed and Designoid Objects
Asian giant hornets: the largest hornet in the world ... A potent venom, a toxin that can melt flesh, and even cause death in a matter of minutes. Killer Hornets from Hell, National Geographic 2015
It’s nearly twenty times the size of a bee. ibid.
A population problem that is spiralling out of control. ibid.
I could see him groping his way to the bed the tablet of soap in his right hand. ‘Now!’ John ordered. I switched on the light, and at the same moment he hitched back the covers from the bed and made several lightning dabs with the soap, moving it from place to place on the mattress as if making a feverish move in draughts. I watched, fascinated and horrified, while Toby stood at my elbow, holding the rug in his arms. John straightened up and examined the under surface of the soap. Then he showed it to us. It had four small black corpses embedded in it. John was delighted with himself, and crowed like a child.
‘We got ’em! We got ’em!’ Lynne Reid Banks, The L-Shaped Room
Scarab beetle: only insect on Earth known to navigate by following the light of the Milky Way. Ancient Aliens s9e11: Aliens and Insects, History 2014
Is it possible the ancient Egyptians could have encountered alien beings that had an insect-like appearance? ibid.
In evolution’s greatest irony one of the first creatures to appear would be the last to remain. For incubating in the darkened womb in prehistory was a seed of grotesque variation – a foetus with a capability to dominate all. The Hellstrom Chronicle, opening commentary, 1971
A frightening tour de force of adaptability. ibid.
If any living species is to inherit the Earth it won’t be man. ibid.
A 300-million-year head start on Man. ibid.
Physically they are a miracle of engineering. ibid.
The termite mound – one of the first experiments in social order. ibid.
Some of mankind’s fear of insects spring from the imagination. ibid.
The insect has been called a walking digestive tract. ibid.
The plague [of locusts] is a single animal, its body covering 400 miles. ibid.
If ever there were proof of God’s malevolence it’s got to be the mosquito. Sam Harris, Waking Up With Sam Harris #57: An Evening With Sam Harris & Richard Dawkins, Los Angeles, Youtube 1.36.57
This is much bigger than squirrels … Dope-eating insects, man. Trailer Park Boys s2e4: A Dope Trailer is No Place for a Kitty, Ricky
It killed insects: it was called DDT … The United States was a continent plagued with insects. Farmers lived in perpetual fear of finding a new infestation. Whole crops were regularly destroyed by pests. DDT and the other insecticides invented in its wake promised victory in this war. Adam Curtis, Pandora’s Box IV: Goodbye, Mrs Ant, BBC 1992
But the entomologists began to discover what appeared to be serious side effects … Many other species of wildlife were being harmed. ibid.
The chemical companies also portrayed the battle against the insects as a necessary war. ibid.
The first serious public attack on the widespread use of pesticides came from Rachel Carson. She was a biologist who had worked for the United States Fish and Wildlife service. In the late ’50s she began collecting evidence of the side effects. In particular, studies which showed that DDT was becoming more concentrated as it worked its way into the bodies of larger animals. In 1962 she wrote a book called Silent Spring. ibid.
Where once chemicals were seen as good now they were bad. In the early 1970s press and television became fascinated about any reports of the side effects of pesticides and herbicides and above all of the effects on human beings. ibid.
The Mountain Stone Weta, 7 cm: an insect that’s grown as big as a mouse … When ice sets in around it this ingenious hulk of an insect does something very strange indeed: it freezes itself to death, nearly. Natural World: Nature’s Biggest Beasts, BBC 2022
Our bees, butterflies and pollinating insects are dying out. This giant insect workforce pollinates our crops. Bees, Butterflies and Blooms, BBC 2012