Lives on Earth

insects

  • Ants As Pets and Pests

    Of the thirty or so ants that arrived with my ant farm, five are still alive after about six weeks. I never had much interest in keeping ants, but E. O. Wilson and Bert Hölldobler’s Journey to the Ants sparked… Continue reading

  • Prickles, Thorns, Spines, Hooks

    Something is odd about the thorns on rose bushes. I noticed it when I was trimming the plants in the yard. To get at the inner twigs, I reached in and down while avoiding most of the barbs, then snipped… Continue reading

  • Peter Wohlleben’s “The Hidden Life of Trees”

    Until recently I was quite sure that a broad difference between animals and plants was that animals, because they are mobile, readily interact with each other (flocking, pursuing, etc.) while plants, anchored to the ground, don’t do so because they… Continue reading

  • No Pain, No Sympathy

    Which living things merit our sympathy? Our pets? Certainly. What about human embryos? And plants? Is it consciousness or complexity or being human or the capacity for pain that makes an individual life worth our empathy? The debate over animal… Continue reading

  • Darwin’s Dark Vision: “Ten Thousand Sharp Wedges”

    Darwin has gotten to me. The third chapter of On the Origin of Species has changed how I look at nature. The name of the chapter sounds quaint at first: The Struggle for Existence. But it is an apt name… Continue reading

  • Katydids, Cicadas, Crickets, Grasshoppers

    In last Sunday’s New York Times (September 23), in her wonderful article, “A Little Night Music,” Diane Ackerman contemplates the chorus of katydids, crickets, grasshoppers and cicadas whose evening serenade from backyards and fields in temperate zones this time of… Continue reading

    Katydids, Cicadas, Crickets, Grasshoppers