The Scope and Aims of Applied Entomology
The class Insecta has existed from early Palaeozoic times, developing through the course of the ages into a numerical aggregate of species unknown and unparalleled in any other group of the animal kingdom. At the present day, there is every reason to believe that insect life is more abundant and lux...
| Published in: | Parasitology |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge University Press (CUP)
1914
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0031182000006302 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0031182000006302 |
| Summary: | The class Insecta has existed from early Palaeozoic times, developing through the course of the ages into a numerical aggregate of species unknown and unparalleled in any other group of the animal kingdom. At the present day, there is every reason to believe that insect life is more abundant and luxurious than during any pre-existing epoch. With their remarkable adaptations to almost every conceivable environment, their still lengthier persistence on our planet is a matter of the greatest probability. Dr Holland has predicted in a word-picture how the class is destined to be the last to survive when all other forms of animal life have died out. He writes: “When the moon shall have faded from the sky and the sun shall shine at noonday a dull cherry red, and the seas shall be frozen over and the ice-cap shall have crept downward to the equator from either pole, and no keel shall cut the waters, nor wheels turn in the mills, when all cities shall have long been dead and crumbled into dust, and all life shall be on the last verge of extinction on this globe, then, on a bit of lichen, growing on the bald rocks beside the eternal snows of Panama, shall be seated a tiny insect, preening its antennae in the glow of the worn-out sun, representing the sole survival of animal life on this, our earth,—a melancholy ‘bug’." |
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