Bugs bugs, glorious bugs: 'The little things that run the world'
This week's leader celebrates the many merits of the humble insect, from the bumblebee to the butterfly.
In the past few years, 110 UK councils have declared ‘a Nature emergency’. If those worthy declarations could be backed by one meaningful change, then rethinking our relationship with insects would probably deliver the single biggest uplift in our environment.
Insects represent at least a quarter of all wild species in these islands. Almost all of the flowering plants in Britain — in fact, most of the 340,000 species known worldwide —are dependent upon insects to complete their reproduction. This has been true for 100 million years and it means the very greenness of the planet is a byproduct of insects.
A busy bee at work, helping our gardens.
The fertilising services of these creatures are also of huge economic value for humankind. It is calculated that insect pollination accounts for every third forkful of food we put in our mouths, from apricots to courgettes and the coffee in our cups to the apple in our pie. In total, that specific function has an estimated value of $400 billion a year worldwide.
We should note, however, that this is probably as nothing compared with insects’ additional roles as the recyclers of nutrients and of biodegradable refuse. We need pollinating insects and not only the much-loved, if over-emphasised, honey-bee.
Pollination is performed by an enormous variety of insect types, including moths and beetles. Chocolate is produced courtesy of flies and we owe our tomatoes to bumblebees. All of that vital, life-giving work is free of charge, too.
Beetles are pollanators too, although much lesser known for it than it than bees are.
Insects are so much more than their utilitarian ‘assets’, however. Butterflies, such as the blue morpho, are among the most dazzlingly beautiful creatures that have ever existed. Their diversity is breathtaking. There is a stick insect in China that can grow to the length of an adult’s arm and yet fairy bees are so small that five could line up end to end on a finger nail.
Named insects represent half of all documented life forms and their numbers are mind boggling. For every human, there may be as many as 2.5 million ants. By biomass alone, ants can represent four times more than all the mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians in an area of rainforest.
Butterflies are some of the more beloved of our insect world, due to their beauty.
No one has been more eloquent about our indebtedness to insects than the late American entomologist E. O. Wilson. His best corrective to our sense of hubris is his observation that: ‘If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed 10,000 years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.’
More succinct, however, was his summary of their centrality to life on Earth. Insects are, he wrote, ‘the little things that run the world’.
This feature originally appeared in the July 29, 2026, print edition of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.
