"There are, in fact, so many insect species—at least 2 million and possibly as many as 10 million—that Robert May, an Australian physicist turned theoretical ecologist, once joked, “To a good approximation, all species are insects!”
[...]
Insects transfer more energy from plants to animals than any other group. They are the solder that holds food chains together." 🐛

#TheNewYorker #caterpillars #DavidWagner

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/20/the-little-known-world-of-caterpillars

“To a person attuned to smaller creatures,” Wagner’s former professor Howard Ensign Evans once wrote, “there is no corner of nature not full of excitement, not rich in unsolved problems.” The Earth, Evans added, “is a good place to live.” 🐛

#TheNewYorker #caterpillars #DavidWagner

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/20/the-little-known-world-of-caterpillars