Today I am going to talk about a tiny creature having three-segmented body (head, thorax and abdomen) covered in an exoskeleton, three pairs of jointed legs,compound eyes, and a pair of antennae called insects. Insects are everywhere, the most common animals on our planet. Million of insects species have been named, hundreds add every year and a large amount still unknown. Despite representing 80% of all animal species, people on the whole know little about that tiny creature. If a question asks from people, do you know about insects? I sure most of them will reply with a bad face without knowing the true facts about them. They cause harms? yes, but before their benefits I would like to say their good deeds harms are very less. Two main things that come to mind when we talk about the harms caused by insects are, they destroy our crops as crop pests and second menace to man are blood sucking insects that may cause diseases. And yes cockroaches that are the bad stamp on insect reputation.
But do you ever imagine what life would be without insects? True wording should, there will no life when there will no insects. A biologist Jonas salk said that, if all insects on earth disappeared, within 50 years all life on earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish”. So do you want to disappear from the earth of course not , we have to survive but with insects.
Insects are important in the lives of human beings like bricks in a building if we remove even a single brick that will affect the building overall. So how these are important in our lives? Lets start from their role in pollination, a large number of agricultural crops are pollinated by insects, butterflies, wasps, bees even ants helps to pollinate a number of flowering plants. Bees are at the top of the list they pollinate 70 of the 100 crop species that feed 90% of the world. These are responsible for $30 billion a year in crops.
So if only honey bees extinct from the earth what would happen? That could simply be clear by saying of Albert Einstein once He said: “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination … no more men!”
He was not an entomologist but todays entomologist are completely agree with him. Honey bee is responsible forpollinatingalmonds, apples, avocados, blueberries, cherries, cucumbers, sunflowers, watermelon and many other crops. It has been said, “many plants would disappear without insect pollinators, and entire ecosystems would collapse in the absence of insects in the food chain.” We can say that If there are no insects there will be no apples.
Insects also use as food in some cultures. These are good source of protein. The cultures where eating of insects is not acceptable are those which have other sources of protein like farm animals. In many countries where crops are destroyed by locusts people survive by collecting and consuming these locusts. Insects marvelous function also include production of honey and no body can deny by its importance as it has great medicinal value and a lot of other uses.
Insects also serve as primary and secondary decomposers. They break down and dispose of wastes, dead animals and plants, thereby making the environment clean. Many insects are scavengers especially beetle who feed on dead animals and plants. So if there will no insects all these processes will stop and there will heaps of wastes everywhere that will cause a lot of problems in the environment. We should thank full to insects for this act.
Ants which have no importance at all helps in a number of ecological problems like these aid in decomposition, make tunnels in the soil, aerate the soil and recycle nutrients, turn soil more than the earthworms, maintain healthy plants, reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and a lot more. So next time before encounter of an ant under your shoe think twice. Same with termites which are considered buildings pest helps a lot in decomposing the material and maintaining biogeochemical cycles.
Insects are also very much important in maintaining food web. As insects die a lot of animals that feed on them like birds etc will also die like wise animals feed on birds when will have no food will have no life. . Eventually, animals at the top of the food chain, including humans, would face extinction, too. So from small level to above everyone will face what would face insects.
If we talk more about the services of insects these also produce silk, a very valuable textile material. We feel pleasure to wear it. Silkworms includes in formation of silk and what a beautiful process they have for its formation. Many people among you may also dont know that silkworms deprive of their lives during formation of silk. Insects also produce lac and wax very value able materials.
The tiny creature also not less in beauty than any other form of life on the earth. They fascinate human eyes, art lovers take ideas from the beautiful colors of butterflies, moths and many other insects, naturalists inspire from ants work, bees pollination, flying pattern of insects etc. could you imagine how dull life will be without beautiful butterflies and shining beetles on landscape. Butterflies are most beautiful pearls of insects as Robert A. Heinlein used to say, “butterflies are not insects…..they are self-propelled flowers”
So more and more and more you can get from insects, list goes long. If we dont have insects the beautiful, plentiful, colorful and yes of course in some cases harmful tiny members of us on earth we will also no more on the earth. As we want to live we should take care of them…..