Insects...
Over the 40+ years I have spent observing insects, this I have learned…
It is invidious to judge anything by appearance, but some insects will never look attractive in my eyes. Bristletails, earwigs, cockroaches, and many flies fall into this category, while the beauty of other insects draw me to them like… well, a moth to a flame.
Fortunately, I am no longer mottephobic, or afraid of moths, an inconvenient condition my mother unintentionally gave me when I was a child. Neither do I have entomophobia, a more general phobia of insects. Instead, I find them fascinating both to observe and to research.
I have also learned that I am never going to see every species of insect, given that they account for over 90% of creatures on the planet, the most diverse group of living animals and the largest biomass among terrestrial animals. Entomologists estimate there are over 10 quintillion insects (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) or about 200 million insects per human at any given time on earth, all flying, crawling, and hopping about or in some stage of pre-adult metamorphosis (egg, larva, pupa).
So far over a million have been described or classified out of an estimated two to 30 million species (no-one seems quite sure), and in Britain alone, there are over 24,000 species of insects. As we do for all animals, we classify insects hierarchically, e.g. Bombus lapidarius, the red-tailed bumblebee:
Kingdom: Animalia (all animals)
Phylum: Arthropoda (all arthropods)
Class: Insecta (only the insects)
Order: Hymenoptera (sawflies, wasps, bees,
and ants)
Family: Apidae (bumble bees, euglossine, euglossines, honey
bees, stingless bees)
Genus: Bombus (bumblebees)
Species: Bombus lapidarius (Large Red-tailed Humble-bee)
The effort involved in insect classification is extraordinary and is probably best exemplified by the dedicated efforts of the German-British entomologist Karl Jordan (1861-1959). In 1893 he began work at the Natural History Museum at Tring (now a division of the Natural History Museum) established by Walter, 2nd Baron Rothschild, specialising in Coleoptera (beetles), Lepidoptera (butterflies), and Siphonaptera (fleas).
Between then and Walter’s death in 1937, he published over 400 papers, some co-authored with the Rothschild brothers, the financiers Walter and Charles. He personally described 2,575 new insect species, with an additional 851 in collaboration with the Rothschilds. A lifetime of dedicated work and “just” over 3,000 new insect species described. And that was with the unprecedented resources of the Rothschilds. Walter’s private natural history collection included 2,250,000 butterflies and 30,000 beetles, and Charles had amassed a collection of 260,000 fleas. In addition, Charles personally described about 500 new flea species and - with Karl in Egypt - discovered and named the bubonic plague vector flea, Xenopsylla cheopis, also known as the oriental rat flea.
It is not much of a stretch to imagine Karl Jordan and Charles Rothschild energetically and contentedly collecting beetles, moths and butterflies together at Wicken Fen, near Ely, two acres of which the 22-year old Charles had bought in 1899 in order to establish the UK’s first nature reserve with the National Trust. He had drawn the significant conclusion from observation that while some creatures are generalists and can survive in many different environments, most have found their niche in specific habitats. Destroy these habitats and you destroy or displace the creatures. He had seen first-hand the consequences of habitat destruction, believed that nature had intrinsic value and, with his wealth and influence, was in a position to act. In 1910, Charles established another nature reserve, a wetland habitat at Woodwalton Fen near Huntingdon, and two years later set up the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves, the forerunner of The Wildlife Trusts partnership.
Tragically, this banker bored by banking, a man of immense intelligence and foresight, and the pioneer of organised nature conservation in Britain, was to commit suicide at the age of just 46 in 1923, suffering from the brain inflammation encephalitis.
I have promised myself that this summer I will go to Wicken Fen and Woodwalton Fen, enjoy the peaceful, protected landscapes and wildlife and thank Charles Rothschild for what he gifted this country.
Researching this article led me to think about choosing a single favourite insect from millions of the most beautiful, such as dragonflies, damselflies, mayflies, beetles, butterflies, and moths. I concluded it’s an impossible task, but I recalled a late summer afternoon in 2020, in the garden, when I encountered two of my favourites, a bee and a moth.
Summer Air Show
Almost hidden in the fuchsia and lavender, grown giant in
our rich Jurassic clay,
Half dazed with sun and scent I drowse to the hum and drone
of bees and hoverflies.
They take no notice, banded beauties, coal-black, copper,
iron, fen mud, cinnabar-red,
Marmalade and honey, tangerine and yolk; gold leaf and lemon sparkles in their fur.
They lift, land, push and quiver, part the fuchsia’s swaying
scarlet petals, crawl inside.
Maybe two seconds, sometimes five, and then reverse, emerge,
repeat the dance.
They are quicker on the lavender’s top-heavy fragrant
spikes, their weight bowing them
Briefly as they forage between whorled flower-heads,
trailing citrus on their wings.
I love the pretty commoners, Bombus lapidarius, the red-tailed bumblebee, the females
In deepest velvet black highlighting sassy orange rumps, the
males with vibrant yellow bands.
The bustle and buzz intensifies, the air vibrates as if a
human VIP has entered through a door,
Whispers of recognition rippling in rising and falling
rhythms into the corners of a room.
Talk about celebrity, a genuine star, Macroglossum stellatarum, Hummingbird Hawk Moth,
Startling mimic of its namesake bird, flies in and hovers,
wings beating 80 times a second.
The bees and hoverflies make way, the moth commands the
field ten inches from my face,
And just like a hummingbird’s tongue its long proboscis
probes the fuchsia’s elongated bells.
It never settles, denies my eyes the sight of flashing
orange in the midst of subtler colours,
Criss-crossed lines of black, its weighty
chessboard-patterned body and bird-like stubby tail.
No silent stalker of the night but a daytime raider, a
Harrier held aloft on Pegasus engines,
Its penetrating buzz is in my head long after it has lifted
off, top gun of my private air show.
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