Planet of Life 5: The Insect World

  1. 300 million years ago insects were present on earth. They were the first creatures to fly. Stenodyctia - similar to dragonflies. Protophasma - early roaches. Megeneura @ 3 foot wingspread dragonfly.
  2. Insect compound eyes have @ 25,000 lenses per mm 2. Insects can see untraviolet light.
  3. Dr. Carl Nicolas of Cornell University studies insect flowering plant relationships. These developed during the Cretaceous Period. By the end of the dinosaur era insect species numbers had reached present day levels. In Frankfurt Amine, Germany over 400 fossil species have been found. These are from the Messol Oil Pits.
  4. Dr. James Fuller of the University of Toronto, Canada studies moth hearing and ear structure. Moths evade night flying bats by hearing their sonic chirps.
  5. Dr. Kihichi Honda of the University of Hiroshima, Japan studies swallowtail larvae and pupae. Pupal color depends upon whether the pupation surface is smooth or rough. Rough surfaces produce brown pupae. Smooth surfaces produce green pupae.
  6. It has been observed that bees attack wasps invading their colonies by swarming the wasp and through wing vibration cook the wasp to death. They raise temperature through muscle contraction to 113 degrees F. To kill the wasps.
  7. Dr. Masama Sosaki of Tamagawa University does detailed studies of how that bees communicate to locate nectar bearing flowers.
  8. Dr. Jean Louis de Nubor at Brussels Free University studies ant communication. He manufactures simple machines that act at random in groups to produce group positive results. He indicates that ants are like these machines. That they are not using intelligence but rather community random actions to produce their colonies. He indicates that their nervous systems are hard wired to react in specific ways to invironmental stimuli.
  9. He studies Leaf Cutter Ants ( Atta species) on Barro Colorado Island. This is an international research station in the Panama Canal Zone. These ants harvest leaves which they chew up and make a paste that they place in their colonies. The paste grows a fungus that is the ants only food. A single colony may have as many as five million individuals. Ants have been found preserved in amber 20 million years old.