Insects & Terry L. Irwin

GIANT FUNGAS BEETLES SAY, BEWARE THE HAIRY CATERPILLAR
AND THEIR URTICATING HAIRS!!
Yasuni is estimated to harbour 100,000 insect per hectare! The highest documented insect diversity in the world.
I was extremely lucky to be at the station in 2014 with, “the famed entomologist Terry L. Erwin, a prolific scholar who revolutionised the scientific understanding of the diversity of life on Earth and set up some of the world’s first global conservation programs”
Liz Kimbrough. MongaBay.
Terry was busy working for the Smithsonian Institute at the time.
I badgered him to listen to the music accompanying this clip and will carry his praise, “it took me to the Emerald Forest”, to my grave.
Terry lay down his mortal coil in 2020.
With great respect I quote him here,
“If the goal of conservation strategies is to provide reserved areas for most of biodiversity, and that should be the goal, knowledge is needed from the nearly unknown universe of tiny mites and tardigrades (somewhat bear-shaped, dew dwelling creatures rarely exceeding one millimetre) as well as that of the large trees and their vertebrate inhabitants. Eventually, as technology catches up with inventory, this means that the minute organisms (internal and external parasites, bacteria, viruses, and so on) inside and on the mite and other microscopic animalcules will need documentation as well. However, at present we have no reasonably complete map of biodiversity that is valid for more than a minuscule percentage of life on the planet, nor do we have practical technology to access the smallest of species - the prokaryotes. Not even all vertebrates, butterflies, or tree species are sufficiently well-mapped as to provide significant meaning at a global scale. We know very little thus far about patterns in tropical forest canopies, the very heart of biodiversity”
Terry Erwin 1940 - 2020
Yasuni
Tiputini
&The Web of Life