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Alien Worlds review: Celebrating Earth's insects – as they disappear

From diving ants to jewel beetles, there are millions of insect species on Earth. A wonderful new guide from entomologist Steve Nicholls celebrates some of the smallest lives and details the strain they are under

By Richard Smyth

5 April 2023

Monarch mass flight

Monarch butterflies make an impressive swarm, but their numbers are falling rapidly

Steve Nicholls


Steve Nicholls (Head of Zeus)

IT IS the dizzying transitions of scale that best characterise our complex relationship with insects. Zooming in, we peer with ghastly fascination at parasitoid fairy flies, which are small enough to parasitise not the bodies but the eggs of other insects. Zooming out, we gawp at the 10 million-odd insect species – and marvel that the total weight of the Amazon rainforest’s ants is about four times the combined weight of all the vertebrates there.

In Alien Worlds: How insects…

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