AMAZING WORLD OF INSECTS

Amazing world of insects

                                                                                                           Maneka Gandhi

I am sitting in a wooden deckchair underneath an olive tree. I am in France, in tarn gorge country on the border of Spain in a small beautiful house with vineyards stretching in front of me. My hosts Philip and Ruy have a hundred year old village house made entirely of stone with fig and apricot trees. The house is at the side of the gorge and a little stream runs through it. They grow their own vegetables and everyday we break out fat red tomatoes, courgettes, lettuce and French beans and cook it with basil. They have chickens and ducks as well , rescued from butchers and we play with them, the cats and dogs all of whom get on together . We eat under the trees, feet bare on the rough moist grass with a large statue of bacchus lost in his grapes, the stars overhead, surrounded by the scent of lavender bushes. Everywhere I look I can see the hill forest stretching out. The house is named , aptly for me, AU Paradis DES Cigales
At night the moths come in when I read , beautiful brown winged creatures that surround my bed. The little swimming pool is full of boat riders, little insects that ski magically on the waters. Be careful of the horseflies, says Ruy .They watch you and when they think you are not looking they graze your arms with their bites. He points out a yellow and black winged creature and sure enough he watches us as we watch him , a Mexican standoff for now. As the sun rises, the cicadas come out and chirp till the sun goes down. Philip says that they come every year on June 15th , not a day before or after. How amazing, that in a world of changing climates, the cicadas should follow a calendar date so strictly. Where do they come from and where do they go when summer is over?But insects are amazing. For as long as we have been here , they have shared the world with us. They eat our food , share our beds, even our bodies, surrounding us, living in our homes, but we know nothing about them. They are so varied, so elegant, so tiny and yet huge nations stretch out , colonizing the wold so much more effectively than us. They run earth, pollinating, decomposing, spreading flowers and disease. Animals are dependent on us, insects are indifferent and secure in their own lives and powerIn 1926 , a small six seat plane took off from Tallulah, Louisiana in America. It was the first time that humans were going to map , how far above , in the sky, could insects be found and map their migration patterns. For 5 years more than 1300 plane sorties were made. The plane could go unto 15000 feet only and the researchers found millions and millions of insects in the sky , 700 different species, floating and. Flying in hordes to their own destinations. They estimated that one square mile contain 25-36 million of them rising in columns from 20 feet to 15,000 at any given time. They found ladybirds at 6000 feet, cucumber beetles at 3000 feet, fruit flies, gnats, scorpion flies... They found wingless ants at 4000 feet and wasps at 5000. At 15000 they found baby spiders riding on the air currents . The researchers recorded that spiders were addicted to this mode of travel. Babies climbed unto the heads of flowers or twigs, raised their abdomens, threw out silk filaments, and caught the air currents , launching themselves into exciting journeys in the sky, their legs spread eagled like human parachutists, controlling their ascents and descents.The researchers saw lines of silver moths flying steadily alongside migrating birds. Thousands of butterflies passed the plane by, neatly dodging the wings. Bees, beetles, ,aphids, dragonflies, cicadas, all on mysterious journeys across the globe, all hidden from the average human eye. Look up at the sky. Can you see them tumbling through the heavens, soaring and gliding , hovering and flying. Their takeoffs are as calculated as ours , based on the wind and light, they fly with as much skill. Hordes of butterflies and locusts suddenly change their flying level at one swoop to catch a favourable current. They adjust direction and altitude. They land at locations favourable for their lives and take off when they want to without landing strips and night lights, even the wingless ones. When it rains, I am sure the tiniest ones find their way around the raindrops.What a wonderful world we are destroying, even before we have been able to enjoy all the amazing forms of life it has. When you look up at the sky imagine the sunlight reflect off the gleaming wings of millions and millions of insects, all almost invisible to the naked eye which is so limited that all it can see are a few birds and the endless white chemical fumes of airplanes crisscrossing the sky.To join the animal welfare movement contact gandhim@nic.in

                                                                    Prof. John Kurakar