Insects and Philosophy

Richard Dawkins
“ Middle World”

I squashed an insect yesterday
As it ambled up a wall.
I couldn’t see its head or legs,
It was so very small.
It didn’t bite and couldn’t sting,
I felt no fear at all.

We are the champions ………???
We are selfish and arrogant and
generally think there are none like us
among the billions of stars in the
universe
As human beings we are happy to kill
any other species and murder our own
for seemingly trivial reasons. We are
also very impatient.

Are we really superior to insects ?
So it is said, but only by humans. I’ve never
heard an insect raise the subject.
Forget the universe. We both live on this
planet and use its facilities as best suits us.
A cautious estimate of the number of insect
species is about 5 million. Not all have
names but the insects don’t give a hoot: a
bug by any other name……

We assess our environment through the same 5 senses:
Sight
Hearing
Touch
Smell
Taste

Most insects are sex mad

Insect Sight
Simple eyes and compound eyes: one or both
A simple eye is a single lens: tells the
difference between light and dark, may also
see rough shapes (caterpillars)

Insect Sight
Simple eyes and compound eyes: one or both
A simple eye is a single lens: tells the
difference between light and dark, may also
see rough shapes (caterpillars)
A compound eye may have 28000 bits.
Movement is seen better than shape. Some
can see sharp images and colours. Most
insects cannot see red but can see
ultraviolet, which we can’t.

Insect Hearing
Insects “hear” through vibrations of air,
water or ground. Some insects have
hearing organs inside their legs.
Some insects hear sounds that people
can’t.
Crickets detect sound through a “tympanum”
like our ear drum. Many moths have one
or more and can hear bats’ echo-location.

Insect sense of taste
Detection organs are found mainly on mouths
or feet. Bees have them on their antennae.
Wasps select where to lay eggs because of the
taste organ on their ovipositor.
Surgeons have copied the ovipositor of the
wood-boring wasp to make a surgical
instrument.

Insect sense of taste
We share the same taste sensations: salty, bitter.
sweet and sour but insects can also detect
particular chemicals. The cabbage butterfly can
detect mustard.

Insect sense of smell
Antennae are more “smellers” than “feelers”
They help in many ways, such as which way to go
Insects cannot detect as many different odours
as our noses but can differentiate smells better
and sense smaller quantities. A male emperor
moth can detect a female six miles away.
Social insects (ants,bees) detect unwanted
visitors by their smell.

Insect sense of touch
Usually this is felt by the small hairs on the
insect, which detect movement when they
touch something.
These sensory hairs also help honey
bees orientate to the earth’s gravity
when upside down in the hive.
One species of grasshopper can feel air
moving at less than 200yards an hour.

Time

There are more things in heaven
and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in thy
philosophy