Man in a World of Insects ^ 



By DwiGHT M. DeLong 



Professor of Entomology, The Ohio State University, Columbus 



Numerous scientific scholars have attempted to define or name the 

 present age of biological development in line with past evolutionary 

 ages. The geologist has referred to it as "the age of man." Others 

 have referred to it as the Psychozoic Era. This is undoubtedly the 

 result of the general belief that man is the dominant and superior 

 type of animal on the surface of the earth and that he is capable of 

 conquering or subduing every other form of life. 



Of course we are extremely egotistic. Many of us believe that the 

 world was created for us and that everything on the earth is intended 

 in some way, directly or indirectly, for our use or benefit. But the 

 truth is that man is only one of the recent products of organic evolu- 

 tion. It is true that man has become the dominant type of vertebrate 

 animal, but he must constantly be aware of, and compete with, the 

 dominant type of invertebrate, "the world of insects," which com- 

 prises four-fifths of all the animals on the earth, some 800,000 species, 

 and which man has never subdued. One author has referred to this 

 era as the "age of insects," another writes of the "insect menace," 

 and a recent film which is an excellent portrayal of this struggle is 

 entitled "The Rival World." 



When primitive man arrived on the earth as a product of evolution, 

 he found it already occupied and well populated with insects. This 

 has been proved to us by the paleontologist, with his undisputable 

 evidence of fossil records. The paleontologist tells us that insects 

 are recorded in the late Paleozoic, which was some 200 million years 

 ago, and at that time they were well developed, so that they must 

 have appeared much earlier. There cannot be the faintest doubt 

 that millions of years must have been required for the evolution of 

 the insect world as it existed in the upper Carboniferous period. This 

 historic evidence leads us to believe that insects came into the world 

 some 300 million years ago or more, became highly developed through 



^Presidential Address, 69th annual meeting of the Ohio Academy of Science, Antioch 

 College, April 22, 1960. Reprinted by permission from the Ohio Journal of Science, vol. 60, 

 No. 4, July 1960. 



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