Renowned entomologist and evolutionary biologist Dino Martins demonstrates in his latest book that even the most gruesome creatures have vital roles to play in nature, as reported by The Guardian.
Martins spent his formative years in biodiversity-rich western Kenya with his foster parents, observing birds, flowers, and insects on Mt Elgon, Kakamega forest, and Kerio valley.
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He was transfixed by the miniature world beneath his feet, which included dung beetles rolling cattle dung, safari ants migrating, male butterflies sucking nutrients from mud, and bees pollinating the critically endangered African violet.
"We had no television, so I learned to look at the creatures around me. Insects were the easiest to find," says Martins.
The Royal Entomological Society estimates there are 1.4 billion insects for every person on Earth, making up to 90% of all animal species and more than half of all living things.
"Throughout our lives, we are never more than a couple of feet from an insect, yet we ignore them," Martins says.
"From the food we eat to the ecosystems we depend on, insects and other invertebrates play essential roles, most of which we overlook or fail to appreciate."
His early obsession with insects morphed into a scientific calling focused on overlooked environmental architects.
Martins, who chairs the insect committee of Nature Kenya and is a research professor at Stony Brook University in New York, documented these bugs in books like Insects of East Africa, Butterflies of East Africa, and Our Friends the Pollinators: a Handbook of Pollinator Diversity and Conservation in East Africa.
