As the dominant and easiest group of animals on Earth, insects always attract my interest. I always thought about writing a book about insects; it was only a matter of time. But I quickly realized that insects are too broad for a book and they are worthy of an encyclopedia; so I chose a subset.
Diptera insects seem to be perfect: diverse, mysterious, full of charm (if we stop to observe carefully), very successful, but mostly we ignore. During the 3 years of writing this book "Invincible Fly House: The Successful Cheats of Diptera Insects", Diptera insects have been constantly rewarding my pursuit of them.
Diptera (Diptera) belongs to Insecta class , and its member characteristics are that it has only two wings (in Greek , di means "two", ptera means "wings"). The ancestral hindwings of Diptera insects are specially transformed into a pair of rod-like structures, called "balance rods", which mainly play a role in stabilizing flight.
There are two main categories of Diptera: Nematocera, generally includes small and slender insects, such as mosquitoes, , large mosquitoes and cereals. The horned sub-orders are named for their long tentacles, but their slender, fragile appearance can help you identify them more easily. Brachycera includes smaller, more robust short-end insects. The common housefly belongs to the order of the short-horned suborder.
"Invincible Fly House: The Secret of Success in Diptera", Yilin Publishing House August 2022 edition, [US] by Jonathan Balcombe, translated by Zuo Anpu, reviewed by the Three Butterfly Records.
Ecological anchor
Diptera insects often ignore our interests. They besiege us, bite us, and infect us with pathogens unknowingly. However, no matter how we treat individuals of Dipteran insects, they should regard their collective as an integral part of the world and share this world with them. Mahatma Gandhi once pointed out briefly: "The only way to live is to let others live."
Think about maggot . The benefits they bring to humanity are profound because they are hidden. Maggots are able to decompose and redistribute organic matter, so they are considered the most important insect larvae . Without insects, tiny organisms that are too small to be eaten by vertebrates cannot enter the food chain. By consuming microorganism , insects bridge the size gap and convert these nutrients into food for fish, birds, reptile , amphibian , and large insectivorous mammals (such as bears). The larvae excretion waste provides nutrients to the underlying layers of the food web—plants and fungi—. And upstream of the food chain, larvae, pupae and many adult dipteran bodies are important food sources for large animals.
Think about 号 again. At specific locations, the number of midges is greater than that of other insects. Compared with other aquatic insects , they will be eaten by more species. During the aquatic larval stage, midges are an important food source for fish. And in the winged adult stage, they are equally important to birds. Billions of midges eventually entered the mouth of shorebird , swallows and sen . Although they are one of the most uncharming Dipteran insects, they are perhaps the most evolved and most ecologically valuable aquatic insects on Earth. A recent Canadian survey found that when discussing global ecosystems, diversity in hamburger is higher than all other insect populations, including the famous beetle .
One morning in late April 2019, I was riding on the sidewalk next to Quinty Bay, Lake Ontario, and witnessed first-hand the importance of flying flies to birds. Although the temperature at night is still as low as near freezing, I have encountered swarms of worms since the previous week. Whenever I walk through these worms, their tiny black bodies will leave spots on my white raincoat. This morning, an equally impressive group of swallows has arrived. I saw at least 1,000 swallows on the bay area of three quarter mile I rode. They dive, circle, and stay a few inches above the horizontal line.Swallows are special insectivorous animals. They do not eat bees, , wasps, , beetles or moths because these insects do not feather in the water. And I'm sure I can see the larger body of aquatic ephemeral or stone fly (none of them are Diptera). However, it is the cereal that attracts swallows. The swarms of small insects nourish the hungry birds migrating north. It is by no means a coincidence that swallows arrive after a few days of eruption; this has been going on for thousands of years, or maybe millions of years.
However, I want to know whether we are different from swallows and are losing contact with insects. This question has attracted more and more scholars. As the urbanization process accelerates globally, is it possible that we will become increasingly alienated from nature and at the same time, the infinite benefits that nature brings to us?
American journalist Richard Love believes that the answer is yes. In the popular book " The Last Child in the Forest" published in 2005, Love proposed the concept of " Natural Deficiency ", which refers to the fact that children lack physical contact with nature due to their increasingly urbanized indoor life, which may have a negative impact on their personal health and social structure.
Several years ago, botanists James Wandersey and Elizabeth Shisler coined the term “plant blindness”, referring to the loss of connection between the food we eat and the crops that provide them, while we no longer realize that our survival depends on plants. I put forward the term "insect blindness" means that we do not recognize that insects, as pollinators, components of food network , pest controls and cleaners, play an indispensable role in maintaining our lives. In this case, what is "ocean blindness"? Most people alienate the habitat that provides more than half of the oxygen on the planet. Without fish life, the ocean cannot operate, and vice versa; so we can also add "fish blindness".
You should understand this. This is an interdependence. To put it into a sentence from John Muir: "When a person holds something in nature, he will find it connected to the rest of the world." Our planet is an interactive whole. Start removing or destroying the components of this whole will cause the subsequent deterioration. If you continue to make trouble, the entire system will collapse sooner or later. This once happened to the islanders of Easter Island - they cleared all the trees on the island; it also happened to the Mayans - overpopulation, environmental destruction, continuous wars, which made them unable to deal with drought and famine.
In the preface to the book "Extinction: Causes and Consequences of Species" published in 1983, ecologists Paul Elich and Anne Elich designed an appropriate metaphor for the dangers of loss of biodiversity . Imagine our planet being a giant plane. Millions of rivets hold the fuselage together, each representing a species. The extinction of a species is equivalent to pulling a rivet from the plane. Hundreds, or thousands of rivets, can be popped out at will from the plane, and the plane continues to operate as a whole. However, if the process is allowed to continue, the parts of the fuselage will start to loosen and make a sound. Inevitably, as the process of "extinction" continues, the aircraft falls a large chunk. We know what will happen next: crash. The entire system will crash. Diversity promotes stability. We have limited time to be domineering on Earth; we will be punished for our actions.
"Chongqi"
And, we are about to be punished. The insects are disappearing rapidly. The most accurate data at present is that the total biomass of insects is declining sharply at a rate of 2.5% per year, a rate of 8 times higher than that of mammals, birds and reptiles.
A study published in the fall of 2018 recorded flying insects ( crawler not sampled) in 63 locations in Germany over the past 30 years, with a total biomass dropping by 76%. Midsummer is the peak of insect mass, and the losses during this period exceed 80%.The use of pesticides, as well as the conversion of suitable habitats into farmland, is considered the main cause of this consequence. A co-author of the study described its impact as follows: "If we lose insects, everything will collapse." The New York Times described it as "the doomsday of insects" in a gloomy editorial.
"Cymbidium" seems to be a global phenomenon. In 2014, an international team of biologists estimated that the number of invertebrates around the world had dropped by nearly half since 1980. In the original Puerto Rican rainforest, the number of invertebrates in 2012 was only one-sixty to one-quarter of that in 1976, and the specific value depends on the sampling method. During this period, the average maximum temperature rose by 2 degrees Celsius. Invertebrate conservation expert David Wagner, who is at the University of Connecticut , said it was "one of the most disturbing articles I've ever read." The list of extinct species of
has been increasing, and it is not known how many species of Dipteran insects are among them. Considering that most species are still not described, we don’t know how many species have disappeared before we know their existence.
Observation keen citizens noticed this reduction. A French translator shared the message with me: "My husband often told me that after long-distance driving, there are almost no insects on the windshield. In the past, I had to stop every few hours to clean up the splashed blood and various yellow substances because they were too dense and affected the driver's vision. What's wrong with these bugs now??"
The impact of the car itself is also very important. In a six-week butterfly road death survey conducted in Central Illinois, , people counted more than 1,800 dead butterflies. We can speculate that throughout Illinois, 20 million butterflies die on the road every week. In the 50 states in the United States, about 1.3 billion butterflies died in the driver's hands in three months in the summer. Flies, beetles, bees and wasps are usually more dense than butterflies, so their casualties should increase proportionally.
Professional Entomologist Art Berkent has no different views from French translators. "My job is to go out and collect species, kill them, and describe them in detail. People who work like me feel that species are disappearing. We are witnessing extinction. For years, I have been talking to Dipteran entomologists who have a collective consciousness that we are going to be done. We are losing something very precious and beautiful, and we are in deep trouble."
The decline in insects affects other biological populations in the same ecosystem due to the richness and diversity of insects, and their important contribution to a healthy ecosystem that works properly. Therefore, in the Puerto Rico study mentioned above, insectivorous lizards, birds and frogs are also declining. Looking north, the total number of wild birds in North America has dropped by almost one-third since 1970, about 3 billion. This decline involves a large number of species and habitats, not just endangered species, but also ordinary birds living in their backyards. The same is true for
Marine life . We have lost half of our marine life since 1970; if you have studied the history of commercial fishing, you know that we have lost a lot of marine life before that. No wonder American philosopher Jeffrey Lockwood said: "If missing people will make people love each other, then humans should love nature to death."
The following statistics show how well we are adapted to the Anthropocene: Among all the terrestrial vertebrates on the earth, wild animals only account for 3% of the total biomass, while humans account for about one-quarter, and the remaining three-quarters are livestock.If we only consider mammals (excluding fish, birds, reptiles or amphibians), the proportion remains basically the same: 60% of livestock, 36% of humans, and the rest of the animals - elephants, hippos , whales and dolphins , giraffes, rodents, bat , monkeys, etc. - only account for 4%! The heavy footprints we left are not all human shapes, but also include the hoof prints of pigs, cows, and sheep, as well as the three-toed footprints of chickens and turkey . The animals we raise reached astronomical numbers, we killed and ate them.
A profound reshuffle of life is taking place on the earth, and we cannot blame it on one reason. But the so-called " The Sixth Mass Extinction " was caused by humans. The overwhelming and sustained growth of human existence poses a variety of threats to nature: urban encroachment and habitat destruction, air and water pollution, intensification of agriculture, especially animal husbandry, commercial fishing and aquaculture, hunting and poaching, and the long-standing but not until recently widely recognized climate crisis.
Friends of insects
I am a biologist and my main way of making a living is to write and tell about animals and their extraordinary abilities. I treat animals as clients and friends, trying to avoid hurting or killing them—as with any savvy collaborator. But there are exceptions. I've wiped it out after I found a tick burrowing into my skin and I've also had Lyme disease . I have treated myself and my now grown children, and have combed my hair and killed fleas for infected cats. I have also killed a lot of diptera bloodsucking insects, mostly mosquitoes trying to peel my scalp. Similarly, I have slapped the squirts and squirts. Once, I encountered harassment from spotted flies during my canoe trip. When they were flying over my head, I recorded the number of successful slaps, and more than 100 were killed in total. (I later discovered that the hat was a fairly effective barrier for the stinged fly.) I also successfully avoided the stable sting fly that bit my ankle on rare occasions.
But these only happen occasionally. My rule of thumb is to try to eliminate them only in self-defense. I know they are going to hunt my blood, so there is nothing unfair to their blow. Even so, I often choose to restrain myself. Countless times, I saved the mosquito from being slapped to death; while I might have tried to catch a stubborn fly, I was reluctant to kill it. No matter what evil intentions these bugs have, I try to maintain awe for their integrity and their legal status in the web of life.
I am not alone in this regard. More and more people believe that insects are not pests or threats, but co-occurrences on the earth; maybe you are one of them.
In Western culture, a moral concept of "living is coexisting with all things" seems to be popular. "Hyper Park Mothia" is a volunteer group composed primarily of amateur entomologists who have been setting light traps in Hyper Park in Toronto since 2016 and then filming the captured animals. So far, they have recorded over 900 moths , including a moth that has disappeared in the region for more than 100 years and is believed to have become extinct locally.
This group strictly adheres to the policy of "no collection, no killing". I was curious and asked Taylor Lidal, the head of the team, who is a professional dog walker and the owner of a TinyHorse company that provides equipment to manage multiple dogs.
"Most of the people involved have a high rating on the insects we are investigating, and we never want our investigation to have a negative impact on them. We are just to witness. I think the more memorable and important experience is interacting with living organisms, not just destroying it."
I asked Lidal: "Have you seen Dipteran insects on the arranged lighting board?"
"Of course I've seen it. Since we started this work, we've been talking about extending detection to insects in general.
As the dominant and easiest group of animals on Earth, insects always attract my interest. I always thought about writing a book about insects; it was only a matter of time. But I quickly realized that insects are too broad for a book and they are worthy of an encyclopedia; so I chose a subset.
Diptera insects seem to be perfect: diverse, mysterious, full of charm (if we stop to observe carefully), very successful, but mostly we ignore. During the 3 years of writing this book "Invincible Fly House: The Successful Cheats of Diptera Insects", Diptera insects have been constantly rewarding my pursuit of them.
Diptera (Diptera) belongs to Insecta class , and its member characteristics are that it has only two wings (in Greek , di means "two", ptera means "wings"). The ancestral hindwings of Diptera insects are specially transformed into a pair of rod-like structures, called "balance rods", which mainly play a role in stabilizing flight.
There are two main categories of Diptera: Nematocera, generally includes small and slender insects, such as mosquitoes, , large mosquitoes and cereals. The horned sub-orders are named for their long tentacles, but their slender, fragile appearance can help you identify them more easily. Brachycera includes smaller, more robust short-end insects. The common housefly belongs to the order of the short-horned suborder.
"Invincible Fly House: The Secret of Success in Diptera", Yilin Publishing House August 2022 edition, [US] by Jonathan Balcombe, translated by Zuo Anpu, reviewed by the Three Butterfly Records.
Ecological anchor
Diptera insects often ignore our interests. They besiege us, bite us, and infect us with pathogens unknowingly. However, no matter how we treat individuals of Dipteran insects, they should regard their collective as an integral part of the world and share this world with them. Mahatma Gandhi once pointed out briefly: "The only way to live is to let others live."
Think about maggot . The benefits they bring to humanity are profound because they are hidden. Maggots are able to decompose and redistribute organic matter, so they are considered the most important insect larvae . Without insects, tiny organisms that are too small to be eaten by vertebrates cannot enter the food chain. By consuming microorganism , insects bridge the size gap and convert these nutrients into food for fish, birds, reptile , amphibian , and large insectivorous mammals (such as bears). The larvae excretion waste provides nutrients to the underlying layers of the food web—plants and fungi—. And upstream of the food chain, larvae, pupae and many adult dipteran bodies are important food sources for large animals.
Think about 号 again. At specific locations, the number of midges is greater than that of other insects. Compared with other aquatic insects , they will be eaten by more species. During the aquatic larval stage, midges are an important food source for fish. And in the winged adult stage, they are equally important to birds. Billions of midges eventually entered the mouth of shorebird , swallows and sen . Although they are one of the most uncharming Dipteran insects, they are perhaps the most evolved and most ecologically valuable aquatic insects on Earth. A recent Canadian survey found that when discussing global ecosystems, diversity in hamburger is higher than all other insect populations, including the famous beetle .
One morning in late April 2019, I was riding on the sidewalk next to Quinty Bay, Lake Ontario, and witnessed first-hand the importance of flying flies to birds. Although the temperature at night is still as low as near freezing, I have encountered swarms of worms since the previous week. Whenever I walk through these worms, their tiny black bodies will leave spots on my white raincoat. This morning, an equally impressive group of swallows has arrived. I saw at least 1,000 swallows on the bay area of three quarter mile I rode. They dive, circle, and stay a few inches above the horizontal line.Swallows are special insectivorous animals. They do not eat bees, , wasps, , beetles or moths because these insects do not feather in the water. And I'm sure I can see the larger body of aquatic ephemeral or stone fly (none of them are Diptera). However, it is the cereal that attracts swallows. The swarms of small insects nourish the hungry birds migrating north. It is by no means a coincidence that swallows arrive after a few days of eruption; this has been going on for thousands of years, or maybe millions of years.
However, I want to know whether we are different from swallows and are losing contact with insects. This question has attracted more and more scholars. As the urbanization process accelerates globally, is it possible that we will become increasingly alienated from nature and at the same time, the infinite benefits that nature brings to us?
American journalist Richard Love believes that the answer is yes. In the popular book " The Last Child in the Forest" published in 2005, Love proposed the concept of " Natural Deficiency ", which refers to the fact that children lack physical contact with nature due to their increasingly urbanized indoor life, which may have a negative impact on their personal health and social structure.
Several years ago, botanists James Wandersey and Elizabeth Shisler coined the term “plant blindness”, referring to the loss of connection between the food we eat and the crops that provide them, while we no longer realize that our survival depends on plants. I put forward the term "insect blindness" means that we do not recognize that insects, as pollinators, components of food network , pest controls and cleaners, play an indispensable role in maintaining our lives. In this case, what is "ocean blindness"? Most people alienate the habitat that provides more than half of the oxygen on the planet. Without fish life, the ocean cannot operate, and vice versa; so we can also add "fish blindness".
You should understand this. This is an interdependence. To put it into a sentence from John Muir: "When a person holds something in nature, he will find it connected to the rest of the world." Our planet is an interactive whole. Start removing or destroying the components of this whole will cause the subsequent deterioration. If you continue to make trouble, the entire system will collapse sooner or later. This once happened to the islanders of Easter Island - they cleared all the trees on the island; it also happened to the Mayans - overpopulation, environmental destruction, continuous wars, which made them unable to deal with drought and famine.
In the preface to the book "Extinction: Causes and Consequences of Species" published in 1983, ecologists Paul Elich and Anne Elich designed an appropriate metaphor for the dangers of loss of biodiversity . Imagine our planet being a giant plane. Millions of rivets hold the fuselage together, each representing a species. The extinction of a species is equivalent to pulling a rivet from the plane. Hundreds, or thousands of rivets, can be popped out at will from the plane, and the plane continues to operate as a whole. However, if the process is allowed to continue, the parts of the fuselage will start to loosen and make a sound. Inevitably, as the process of "extinction" continues, the aircraft falls a large chunk. We know what will happen next: crash. The entire system will crash. Diversity promotes stability. We have limited time to be domineering on Earth; we will be punished for our actions.
"Chongqi"
And, we are about to be punished. The insects are disappearing rapidly. The most accurate data at present is that the total biomass of insects is declining sharply at a rate of 2.5% per year, a rate of 8 times higher than that of mammals, birds and reptiles.
A study published in the fall of 2018 recorded flying insects ( crawler not sampled) in 63 locations in Germany over the past 30 years, with a total biomass dropping by 76%. Midsummer is the peak of insect mass, and the losses during this period exceed 80%.The use of pesticides, as well as the conversion of suitable habitats into farmland, is considered the main cause of this consequence. A co-author of the study described its impact as follows: "If we lose insects, everything will collapse." The New York Times described it as "the doomsday of insects" in a gloomy editorial.
"Cymbidium" seems to be a global phenomenon. In 2014, an international team of biologists estimated that the number of invertebrates around the world had dropped by nearly half since 1980. In the original Puerto Rican rainforest, the number of invertebrates in 2012 was only one-sixty to one-quarter of that in 1976, and the specific value depends on the sampling method. During this period, the average maximum temperature rose by 2 degrees Celsius. Invertebrate conservation expert David Wagner, who is at the University of Connecticut , said it was "one of the most disturbing articles I've ever read." The list of extinct species of
has been increasing, and it is not known how many species of Dipteran insects are among them. Considering that most species are still not described, we don’t know how many species have disappeared before we know their existence.
Observation keen citizens noticed this reduction. A French translator shared the message with me: "My husband often told me that after long-distance driving, there are almost no insects on the windshield. In the past, I had to stop every few hours to clean up the splashed blood and various yellow substances because they were too dense and affected the driver's vision. What's wrong with these bugs now??"
The impact of the car itself is also very important. In a six-week butterfly road death survey conducted in Central Illinois, , people counted more than 1,800 dead butterflies. We can speculate that throughout Illinois, 20 million butterflies die on the road every week. In the 50 states in the United States, about 1.3 billion butterflies died in the driver's hands in three months in the summer. Flies, beetles, bees and wasps are usually more dense than butterflies, so their casualties should increase proportionally.
Professional Entomologist Art Berkent has no different views from French translators. "My job is to go out and collect species, kill them, and describe them in detail. People who work like me feel that species are disappearing. We are witnessing extinction. For years, I have been talking to Dipteran entomologists who have a collective consciousness that we are going to be done. We are losing something very precious and beautiful, and we are in deep trouble."
The decline in insects affects other biological populations in the same ecosystem due to the richness and diversity of insects, and their important contribution to a healthy ecosystem that works properly. Therefore, in the Puerto Rico study mentioned above, insectivorous lizards, birds and frogs are also declining. Looking north, the total number of wild birds in North America has dropped by almost one-third since 1970, about 3 billion. This decline involves a large number of species and habitats, not just endangered species, but also ordinary birds living in their backyards. The same is true for
Marine life . We have lost half of our marine life since 1970; if you have studied the history of commercial fishing, you know that we have lost a lot of marine life before that. No wonder American philosopher Jeffrey Lockwood said: "If missing people will make people love each other, then humans should love nature to death."
The following statistics show how well we are adapted to the Anthropocene: Among all the terrestrial vertebrates on the earth, wild animals only account for 3% of the total biomass, while humans account for about one-quarter, and the remaining three-quarters are livestock.If we only consider mammals (excluding fish, birds, reptiles or amphibians), the proportion remains basically the same: 60% of livestock, 36% of humans, and the rest of the animals - elephants, hippos , whales and dolphins , giraffes, rodents, bat , monkeys, etc. - only account for 4%! The heavy footprints we left are not all human shapes, but also include the hoof prints of pigs, cows, and sheep, as well as the three-toed footprints of chickens and turkey . The animals we raise reached astronomical numbers, we killed and ate them.
A profound reshuffle of life is taking place on the earth, and we cannot blame it on one reason. But the so-called " The Sixth Mass Extinction " was caused by humans. The overwhelming and sustained growth of human existence poses a variety of threats to nature: urban encroachment and habitat destruction, air and water pollution, intensification of agriculture, especially animal husbandry, commercial fishing and aquaculture, hunting and poaching, and the long-standing but not until recently widely recognized climate crisis.
Friends of insects
I am a biologist and my main way of making a living is to write and tell about animals and their extraordinary abilities. I treat animals as clients and friends, trying to avoid hurting or killing them—as with any savvy collaborator. But there are exceptions. I've wiped it out after I found a tick burrowing into my skin and I've also had Lyme disease . I have treated myself and my now grown children, and have combed my hair and killed fleas for infected cats. I have also killed a lot of diptera bloodsucking insects, mostly mosquitoes trying to peel my scalp. Similarly, I have slapped the squirts and squirts. Once, I encountered harassment from spotted flies during my canoe trip. When they were flying over my head, I recorded the number of successful slaps, and more than 100 were killed in total. (I later discovered that the hat was a fairly effective barrier for the stinged fly.) I also successfully avoided the stable sting fly that bit my ankle on rare occasions.
But these only happen occasionally. My rule of thumb is to try to eliminate them only in self-defense. I know they are going to hunt my blood, so there is nothing unfair to their blow. Even so, I often choose to restrain myself. Countless times, I saved the mosquito from being slapped to death; while I might have tried to catch a stubborn fly, I was reluctant to kill it. No matter what evil intentions these bugs have, I try to maintain awe for their integrity and their legal status in the web of life.
I am not alone in this regard. More and more people believe that insects are not pests or threats, but co-occurrences on the earth; maybe you are one of them.
In Western culture, a moral concept of "living is coexisting with all things" seems to be popular. "Hyper Park Mothia" is a volunteer group composed primarily of amateur entomologists who have been setting light traps in Hyper Park in Toronto since 2016 and then filming the captured animals. So far, they have recorded over 900 moths , including a moth that has disappeared in the region for more than 100 years and is believed to have become extinct locally.
This group strictly adheres to the policy of "no collection, no killing". I was curious and asked Taylor Lidal, the head of the team, who is a professional dog walker and the owner of a TinyHorse company that provides equipment to manage multiple dogs.
"Most of the people involved have a high rating on the insects we are investigating, and we never want our investigation to have a negative impact on them. We are just to witness. I think the more memorable and important experience is interacting with living organisms, not just destroying it."
I asked Lidal: "Have you seen Dipteran insects on the arranged lighting board?"
"Of course I've seen it. Since we started this work, we've been talking about extending detection to insects in general.”
When people stop to think, in a big city with a long winter, with 900 species of moths living in a 400-acre park, people will understand that the diversity of the city is and how important it is to have green space in the city. The number of amateur naturalist has dropped significantly, and Lidal regrets this; but the power of civic science nature applications such as iNaturalist re-engages people, especially young people, to participate in nature, is also encouraging.李六文.
has a special liking for moths, but can we extend this friendship to a Dipteran insect? For creatures that are generally disliked and rejected, can we achieve the potential of deep empathy ?
Please think about the sentence of Joanne Laugh Hobbs in the insect book "Infinite Voice in the Small": "We may feel indignant when we think of helping a fly, perhaps because a narrow consciousness allows us to see only the importance of ourselves. When we extend compassion to insects, our self-awareness expands. "
Kindness is an inexhaustible commodity. If you ever save an ladybug from a water cup, or a cricket from a swimming pool, then you will know from experience that even the smallest act of kindness will make you feel good.
For those who would rather take pesticides than droppers, be aware that our general disgust for insects comes more from learning than innate. There is evidence that humans have natural fears for spiders and snakes, but these are rare exceptions. For example, flowers, houseflies and fish do not cause this disgust.
"We have no natural fear." "Biologist Peter Nascreki wrote in the preface to the book "The Smaller Most" published in 2005. The book mainly describes insects. "Little children are fascinated by the lives around them, and they have the same curiosity about caterpillars and dogs." In later life, overprotected parents and teachers, stressed peers, and misleading media will instill us with fear of most creatures. By the age of 10, most children’s feelings for small creatures such as insects are either affection or hatred. ”
There are huge insect legions on Earth, Ant stands out for its military capabilities, while Dipteran insects are entrepreneurs and liars. Dipteran insects are very flexible in evolution, usually deceptive, and often cause harm to close-knit organisms, so they are particularly prone to dislike and difficult to be loved. They have a series of notorious identities, biters, vectors, carnivores and filthy; But behind these identities, there is an obscure and beautiful, huge and tiny world: the exquisite long-footed flies glided on the leaves in a shiny cloak, the passionate fruit flies stretched their tulle-like wings, the antlered solid flies wore spectacular caliper-like headdress, the male finger-horned flies confronted like aliens on stilts, and the bumblebee aphid flies covered with bull-shaped yellow fluff.
We have been small I was taught to avoid Diptera insects. I was not spared from the ingrained cultural dislike of these insects. But as I continued to learn more about their lives, all the dislike faded and my heart became soft. In my research and writing this book, dozens of Diptera insects had visited me in cafes, libraries and my home. In my workspace, they were far more numerous than other types of visible creatures. They were in my notes Frolicking on this computer, rushing on the backlit screen, sucking the falling stains from the tablet, and brazenly exploring on my arms and palms. They appear in every season, every weather. A little guest even came to visit me in the deep winter of Canada, and when I sang at the Christmas ceremony in the church, it fell on my score.
"There are no ugly animals or plants in nature unless we don't like it. "The novelist and naturalist Jonathan Franzen wrote in the 2018 book "The End of the Earth" published.
I have been staring at insects in the backyard since I was a toddler. It has been nearly 60 years since now, and I understand how Franzen feels.I can reject intolerable cultural norms and thus enjoy the slight itching of the housefly's feet on my skin. They run around gently, taste the taste with their claw pads, and suck with spongy mouthparts.
I like those subtle habits that dipteran insects have. I like houseflies to sweep across the surface like intermittent darts, soft, jerking, and extremely fast, as if gliding. I like the housefly staying on me, its feet gently stomping on my skin, and I can't feel it taking off again. I like to watch the whereabouts of houseflies' beaks, usually shortly after landing, pressing against the surface and spreading like a soft foot pad of an elephant. I also like another Diptera insect whose furry waxy armor captures air and dives into the water.
I also like the urban nature of Diptera insects. In a coffee shop in downtown Delray Beach, Florida, I noticed three small flies on the chrysanthemum stems in a large glass vase. At first I thought with some regret that they might be destined to die on the windowsill or be killed while the administrator was patrolling at night. But these tiny bugs don't feel trapped. They court with enthusiasm, waving their wings, and flying over the green plants, like lively dancers.
Insects integrate into our lives and even form our bodies. "More than a quarter of people in the world eat insects," said David McNeill, author and reporter of "Insect Legend". I want to use the word "intentional" to modify McNeill's statement. If you add inadvertent intake, almost everyone is eating insects every day. Insects are everywhere in the grains, fruits and vegetables we eat, which means that almost everyone who eats eats dozens of insect or insect fragments every day. The appearance of beetle fragments in breakfast cereal is as inevitable as the appearance of pus cells in milk (which is one of the reasons why I like plant milk).
So, how closely is the fate of dipteran insects and the fate of humans? Gail Anderson shared with me a blunt view that clearly features a forensic entomologist: "Without scavenging insects, we will die. The earth would have exhausted nutrients a long time ago. We are all nutrient bags, and Dipteran insects take these nutrients back to Earth. They not only prevent us from being plagued by diseases, but also provide food for plants. They never stop us from becoming ill."
We strive to suppress the emergence of Dipteran insects, but our vast ecosystem - all orchards, all livestock, all corpses, all feces, all compost - has always been a boon for many Dipteran insects. What is certain is that our destruction of wild species has harmed and even eliminated many more inconspicuous Dipteran insects in the world. But we should not deceive ourselves: 1 million years after the last person disappears, the Dipteran insects will also inhabit leaves or rocks, rubbing their feet. We may be able to imagine a world without diptera insects, but if it becomes a reality, we cannot witness it.
(This article is excerpted from the book "Invincible Fly House: The Successful Cheats of Diptera Insects", published by Yilin Press, August 2022 edition, author Jonathan Balcombe, a well-known American animal behaviorist, formerly the director of animal perception research at the Institute of Science and Policy of the American Humane Society. He is the commentator of the BBC, National Geographic Channel and many documentaries and the deputy editor of the journal "Animal Perception". He has written works such as "The Fish Knows Everything", "The Ark of Ecstasy", "The Second Nature", and "Happy Kingdom". The translator of this book is Zuo Anpu. Pengpai Technology is authorized to publish.)
I can reject intolerable cultural norms and thus enjoy the slight itching of the housefly's feet on my skin. They run around gently, taste the taste with their claw pads, and suck with spongy mouthparts.I like those subtle habits that dipteran insects have. I like houseflies to sweep across the surface like intermittent darts, soft, jerking, and extremely fast, as if gliding. I like the housefly staying on me, its feet gently stomping on my skin, and I can't feel it taking off again. I like to watch the whereabouts of houseflies' beaks, usually shortly after landing, pressing against the surface and spreading like a soft foot pad of an elephant. I also like another Diptera insect whose furry waxy armor captures air and dives into the water.
I also like the urban nature of Diptera insects. In a coffee shop in downtown Delray Beach, Florida, I noticed three small flies on the chrysanthemum stems in a large glass vase. At first I thought with some regret that they might be destined to die on the windowsill or be killed while the administrator was patrolling at night. But these tiny bugs don't feel trapped. They court with enthusiasm, waving their wings, and flying over the green plants, like lively dancers.
Insects integrate into our lives and even form our bodies. "More than a quarter of people in the world eat insects," said David McNeill, author and reporter of "Insect Legend". I want to use the word "intentional" to modify McNeill's statement. If you add inadvertent intake, almost everyone is eating insects every day. Insects are everywhere in the grains, fruits and vegetables we eat, which means that almost everyone who eats eats dozens of insect or insect fragments every day. The appearance of beetle fragments in breakfast cereal is as inevitable as the appearance of pus cells in milk (which is one of the reasons why I like plant milk).
So, how closely is the fate of dipteran insects and the fate of humans? Gail Anderson shared with me a blunt view that clearly features a forensic entomologist: "Without scavenging insects, we will die. The earth would have exhausted nutrients a long time ago. We are all nutrient bags, and Dipteran insects take these nutrients back to Earth. They not only prevent us from being plagued by diseases, but also provide food for plants. They never stop us from becoming ill."
We strive to suppress the emergence of Dipteran insects, but our vast ecosystem - all orchards, all livestock, all corpses, all feces, all compost - has always been a boon for many Dipteran insects. What is certain is that our destruction of wild species has harmed and even eliminated many more inconspicuous Dipteran insects in the world. But we should not deceive ourselves: 1 million years after the last person disappears, the Dipteran insects will also inhabit leaves or rocks, rubbing their feet. We may be able to imagine a world without diptera insects, but if it becomes a reality, we cannot witness it.
(This article is excerpted from the book "Invincible Fly House: The Successful Cheats of Diptera Insects", published by Yilin Press, August 2022 edition, author Jonathan Balcombe, a well-known American animal behaviorist, formerly the director of animal perception research at the Institute of Science and Policy of the American Humane Society. He is the commentator of the BBC, National Geographic Channel and many documentaries and the deputy editor of the journal "Animal Perception". He has written works such as "The Fish Knows Everything", "The Ark of Ecstasy", "The Second Nature", and "Happy Kingdom". The translator of this book is Zuo Anpu. Pengpai Technology is authorized to publish.)
