Extreme Insects. Richard Jones
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Название: Extreme Insects
Автор: Richard Jones
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Природа и животные
isbn: 9780007411108
isbn:
Extreme Impact. Humans now reckon themselves to be the dominant life form on Earth, but we have been around for only a few hundred thousand years. Insects were here over 300 million years earlier. Humans, the mere junior upstarts, now come into conflict with a much older and better-established group of organisms. And despite our modern sophistication, we cannot escape such tenacious and apparently determined animals. They invade our fields, our houses and even our bodies. Some we can tame for our own uses, but with others we are still at war.
Insects are both awful and awe-inspiring, certainly worthy of our respect and our study. They give us a window on the natural world through which we can see, and attempt to understand, the environment in which we live, indeed of which we are an integral part. The huge numbers of insects, and their depredations on human food and health, are sometimes bemoaned. In reality, they form a vast biomass, and it is a wasteful shame that insects form an insignificant part of the human diet. We may not eat them very often, but insects offer a more philosophical sustenance – food for thought. In their study, there is a veritable feast for the mind.
Richard Jones
London, September 2009
Oldest insect • Biggest insect • Longest insect • Whitest insect • Shiniest insect • Slimiest insect • Biggest blockhead • Most sexually dimorphic insect • Most mixed-up sexuality • Most bloated insect • Most seasonally dimorphic insect • Highest number of wings • Flattest insect • Most back-to-front insect • Longest ovipositor • Widest head • Brightest light generation • Most variable colour pattern • Bloodiest insect • Most beautiful insect • Longest head • Most streamlined insect • Loudest insect • Best hoverer • Ugliest insect • Largest jaws • Largest wingspan • Best camouflage • Most transparent wings • Hairiest legs • Snappiest jaws • Prettiest eyes • Most elegant eggs • Largest eye markings • Lightest footstep • Furriest insect • Most poisonous insect • Most heavily armoured insect • Longest wing tails • Best burrower • Smallest insect • Heaviest insect • Fastest flier • Fastest runner • Longest tongue • Smelliest insect • Most subterranean insect • Fastest wing-beat • Smallest egg • Largest egg • Spikiest insect • Biggest feet • Largest claws
| NAME | Rhyniognatha hirsti |
| LOCATION | fossil discovered in Aberdeenshire, Scotland |
| STATUS | oldest known fossil of an insect |
Most insects are very small, very delicate and very edible, so the fossil record they have left behind is extremely poor. The majority end up as prey for other animals, bitten, chewed and digested away. Where their remains are not eaten, there are no large bones to be preserved, and even the toughest of insect shells are made of highly biodegradable compounds. As a result, it takes some pretty special circumstances for insect fossils to form, and they are thoroughly scrutinised when found. Or at least they should be.
Until recently, the oldest acknowledged insect-like fossil was an ancient relative of modern springtails. These are wingless soft-bodied creatures that are not now classed as insects but as a sister group within the subphylum Hexapoda (six-legged arthropods). The fossil was found in 1919 by the Reverend W. Cran in the old red sandstone deposits (also called the Rhynie cherts) at Rhynie in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, which date from 407-396 million years ago. It was finally described in 1926 by three paleontologists, S. Hirst, S. Maulik and D.J. Scourfield, who aptly named it Rhyniella praecursor.
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