And then we arrive at the insects.
My university has a very limited array of specialized high-level zoology courses. There are no high-level electives about the intricacies of lampshells or even mollusks at the University of Ottawa. There are courses about various groups of vertebrates, and about unusual microbes like the microsporidia that get a lot of attention for other reasons. We do have an entomology course, because insects are that fundamental and that numerous.
Humans talk a mean game about being the dominant organism on planet Earth, and it’s not an unreasonable assertion. Humans are on a short list of species found on all continents (no matter how those continents are parsed) and most of the other contenders are animals like cattle whose ecology is intimately entangled with ours. If we compare humans (or even primates at large, to be honest) with insects, though…there are millions of them for every one of us, and they are omnipresent. Insects are defining features of every ecology except for the oceans, and a few visit even there. As noted earlier, the insects have more species to their name than any other taxonomically similar group of organisms.
So it’s no surprise that some very interesting beasties lurk in this massive assemblage.