What would the world be like if we didn't have ants, and other invertebrates?

Date:   5/18/2006 2:46:41 PM ( 18 y ago)

An Ode to Ants and Other Invertebrates!


I love bugs! I didn't always. They used to creep me out. I used to step on them and smash them if I found them in my house. I used to use those "bug" traps. I haven't for a long time. My favorite "bugs" are spiders. Inside the house or out, I enjoy watching them weave their webs. They are a natural predator of ants, and keep this population in my house at bay. I also enjoy the earthworms in my compost pile, and am perpetually astounded by how they help transform food scraps, leaves, and grass clippings into wonderful, nutrient-filled soil, in what seems to me to be a fantastic alchemical, mysterious process.

My least favorite bugs are cockroaches. I don't stomp, spray, or flush them down the toilet, though. I catch them in a cup and put them outside, and tell them I am giving them their freedom and their lives in exchange for their promise of not coming back into my house. Of course, when I release them, it is a block away from where I live.

During numerous trips to California tidepools as a child, I grew to love sea anemones, urchins, and other soft and squishy creatures of the sea. My favorite are the jellyfish. I find them mezmorizing to watch at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific, as these delicate beings sway and float and dance in the current of their tanks. I am both fascinated and saddened; saddened because the only way I can watch is for them to be in captivity. My son, when he was little and somewhat hyper, could spend hours just "petting" a sea cucumber with one finger at the "touch tank" of the aquarium; his face would be serene and calm. My daughter is fascinated with sea urchins and sea stars.


All of these animals are what scientists call "invertebrates".


An invertebrate, as defined by Webster's dictionary, "is an animal that has no backbone or spinal column; any animal other than a fish, amphibian, reptile, bird or mammal". Invertebrates on land include what we generically call "bugs"--insects, worms, and arachnids (spider family). Invertebrates that are denizens of the sea include mollusks, jellyfish, seastars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sea anemones, worms, octopuses, squid, and crustaeans, among others. Per Encarta on-line encyclopedia, "Invertebrates are by far the most numerous animals on Earth. Nearly 2 million species have been identified to date. They make up about 98 percent of all the animals identified in the entire animal kingdom. Some scientists believe that the true number of invertebrate species may be as high as 100 million and that the work of identifying and classifying invertebrate life has only just begun."


What would the world be like without ants and other invertebrates?


"Ants have been present for about 100 million years, since the middle of the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era...How have ants managed to stay on top of things for a period of fifty times longer than the entire history of human beings and their immediate ancestors?

The truth is that we need invertebrates, but they don't need us. If human beings were to disappear tomorrow, the world would go on with little change. Gaia, the totality of life on Earth, would set about healing itself and return to the rich environmental states of 100,000 years ago. But if invertebrates were to disappear, it is unlikely that the human species could last more than a few months. Most of the fishes, amphibians, birds, and mammals would crash to extinction about the same time. Next would go the bulk of flowering plants and with them the physical structure of the majority of the forests and other terrestrial habitats of the world. The soil would rot. As dead vegation piled up and dried out, narrowing and closing the channels of the nutrient cycles, other comnplex forms of vegetation would die off, and with them the last remnants of the vertebrates. The remaining fungi, after enjoying a population explosion of stupendous proportions, would also perish. Within a few decades the world would return to the state of a billion years ago, composed primarily of bacteria, algae, and a few other very simple multicellular plants."

--Edward O. Wilson, from "In Search of Nature"
as reprinted in "Heron Dance" magazine, Issue #50




I highly recommend the magazine "Heron Dance"! It is a wonderful effort put together on a shoe-string budget and it is truly a labor of love-- It is all about nature--poems, stories, and original paintings. The magazine is supported by the website where nature books, original and print art, notecards, and films are sold. Additional funds are gathered from a once a year appeal. For a tax-deductible donation, you receive a subscription to the magazine; give an additional small donation for a gift subscription to the lucky person of your choice! That's how I receive mine, from a generous friend who gifted me on my birthday last year.

For more information about "Heron Dance" or to subscribe to the magazine, see the website: http://www.herondance.org


Happy Reading!
And next time, don't step on the ants!

Love, Liora

 

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