Insects, the 10 most important “nations” in the world

We see them tiny, defenseless, hundreds of them: yet we know they can carry us diseases or in the future, as is already the case in many cultures, to transform into food. Counting them all is not possible: most experts agree that there are more species of insects that have not been described than those already identified by scientists. According to estimates prudent the figure of the species of insects is around 2 million, but some authors reach up to 30. It seems a lot, but it is even more so considering that this figure represents about the80% of the world’s species ever. Speaking of absolutely approximate estimates it is assumed that at any time there are about 10 quintillion of single insects alive at the same time. And this has a weight, in the literal sense of the word: as described in the next image, insects probably have the largest biomass among terrestrial animals. The reason lies in the huge reproduction capacity. We think of the “black queen” par excellence among domestic insects: the fly. An emblematic example is that if the descendants of a couple of flies all survive, in five months they could reach 200 quintillion of living beings.

Compared to us, there are more than 200 million insects for every human being. Even if their existence today is threatened from global phenomena of anthropogenic origin such as soil change, pesticides, pollution and today above all climate change: threats that also affect our existence. Just like us, to try to know or identify them better, even insects could be divided into “nations”. Or rather in uniform groups of the thousands of species of which they are composed. Here’s what the 10 largest “nations” on the planet of insects, grouped according to the great orders of belonging of the families of these tiny living beings categorized by science.