PULL back the bark of a rotting log, examine a handful of soil or simply sit quietly and gaze at the comings and goings in a patch of wildflowers. Whatever you are looking at is not trivial it is a very important part of the biological mechanism of life on Earth. The small creatures you see scurrying and flitting about are the lifeblood of the landscape, the vital organisms that make the natural world work, and we would do well to pay them more attention. Insects first appeared on land more than 400 million years ago and, today, make up the vast majority of species on our planet. They are the creatures that do the ecological heavy lifting without insects, it would be hard to see how complex ecosystems could have evolved.
It may come as a surprise that all the herbivorous vertebrates on Earth are completely out-munched, perhaps by a factor of 10 to one, by myriad tiny mandibles and that insects consume many times more animal flesh than all the sharp-clawed and toothed vertebrate carnivores put together. Indeed, ants alone constitute the largest biomass of carnivorous animals in any habitat you care to name, whether it be the savannahs of Africa or your back garden. If any of this sounds implausible, consider that, although insects are individually small, there are an awful lot of them.
Insects also pollinate the vast majority of the world's quarter of a million or so species of flowering plants. This particular version of 'I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine' has been around for about 100 million years and has generated a rich diversity of species. Twenty thousand species of bee are, to a very large extent, responsible for the continued survival of flowering plant life, which includes a very long list of the things we eat-fruit and vegetables from pumpkins, plums and peas to cherries, cucumbers and cocoa.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der July 27, 2022-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der July 27, 2022-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
