“If you thought birds were the first animals to fly you’d be wrong,” intones Oprah Winfrey in the introduction to the Life episode "Insects." “Insects did it 100 million years before birds got off the ground… insects live hard and die young.” Your challenge, as the viewer of this rich documentary, is to watch the entire hour without scratching.
Insects are interesting, but they are also—shall we say—icky. I wouldn’t say all bugs are icky (I guess I’m not a total girly-girl), and I will admit that a lot of them are interesting and quite resourceful. Let’s face it, though, there are too many of them. Ninety percent of the animals in the world are insects. Insects! The majority of them fly. And, if I’m not mistaken, the majority of the flying ones fly around my house.
I can’t walk out the door without being surrounded by wood bees, males looking for mates and boring into my porch roof, building tunnels and nests. I don’t need to go outside, or open a window, to hear their ferociously loud buzzing. Bees are subjects of “Insects,” but the documentary features Dawson’s bees and honeybees, “the alchemists of the insect world.” The honey they produce is one of nature’s richest foods (and one of my favorites).
“Insects” brings us all kinds of bugs—some weighing less than a postage stamp, some with nasty defense systems, some scary, some beautiful. What they all have in common, we learn, are three body sections, six legs, and body armor. Because so many of them fly, they have colonized every habitat on earth.
In Patagonia, you will meet Darwin’s stag beetle, the insect with the most powerful jaws. The male mates with a female in a tree, 80 feet above the ground. First he must climb the tree, then fight off her other potential suitors (which he tosses off the tree—plummeting large beetles, oh my!) before he can make a date, which lasts about six seconds. Once his quest is satisfied, he tosses her off the tree.
Article comments
1 - Emm
Congrats on your 120th article Miss Bob and congrats on being writer of the day!
Life looks fabulous - I must find out about the showing times in the UK.
2 - Subliminal
We can't even begin to imagine how many species of insects there are. Many are so very interesting with a very complex social structure.
As a biologist I am inclined to observe things in nature and insects really fascinate me. Have you ever watched ants form lines on trees, going up and down?
The remarkable thing is that there are these small wasps that predate on these ants. And as a wasp begins to hover near the tree, trying to pick an ant, bigger "warrior ants" come running in and begin spitting formic acid in the predator, thus warding the little wasp away.
Every now and again you see that the warrior ants can't come quickly enough and the wasp picks up a working ant and flies away.
This just fascinates me :)
I love Discovery and watch most shows when I have the time to do so.
Great post and congrats on being writer of the day!
3 - Miss Bob Etier
Patrick, I lived in Louisiana for five years, and learned to appreciate insects (except for fire ants and wood roaches). Although I did not spend time studying them, I found some of the most wonderfully colorful creatures crawling through my gardens, or alongside paths. I had never realized that such creatures existed in the USA; I'd spent a half century with brown and black city bugs. The seemingly infinite variety of insect species is overwhelming, and makes me want to learn more. --Bob E.