A neighbor gave me a book written by a professor of biology in Norway.  Her name is Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson and the book is Extraordinary Insects: The Fabulous, Indispensable Creatures Who Run the World.”

Wait!  Aren’t WE those creatures?  Don’t WE run the world? (in our hubris dreams)

With a new book, I know I’m in trouble when it’s hard to get through the Introduction … not because it’s too technical or boring but because it’s so damn interesting.  But I got stuck on the first paragraph … even the first line!  Maybe you’ll have a similar experience.

“There are more than 200 million insects for every human being living on the planet today.  As you sit reading this sentence, between 1 quintillion to 10 quintillion insects are shuffling and crawling and flapping around on the planet, outnumbering the grains of sand on all the world’s beaches.  Like it or not, they have you surrounded, because Earth is the planet of the insects.”

See what I mean?  Astounding (definitely).  Humbling (should be).

Stuns me (as scientific discoveries often do). But I have to shake it off.  The rest of the book, like the planet itself, lies open, inviting me to read!

A few insects I’ve “captured” with my camera (wonder when these, who “run our world,” will capture Me?  Maybe they already have)