You coleopterans come here, talkin’ big about your beetle shapes and species. I’m only interest in biomass, and class Isoptera has that on lock, with roughly 77% of total soil arthropod biomass.
Yuval Rosenberg et al., The global biomass and number of terrestrial arthropods.Sci. Adv.9,eabq4049(2023).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.abq4049Isopods are cheating. They’re ancient, like older than bones. Colepotera are the new kids on the block with the shiny new sports car wings.
Fun facts, though, for readers: Of the roughly 1 million named insect species on Earth, about 400,000 are beetles. https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2024/why-are-there-so-many-types-of-beetles
No, what’s cheating is sticking with Insecta. It’s a short walk up and over to get to Crustacea->Copepoda and we can have more biomass than terrestrial life.
ed: I applaud your work. Science-high-five.
Lazy passive sci comm. :)
I have to restrain myself from doing this with Godzilla or Gundam facts when I’m around normal people. Then people tell me I’m too quiet.
If you want me to talk then talk about one of the like 4 things I’m interested in assholes. /s
Do you have a moment to talk about the Scarabaeinae, and how most of them eat poop?
I feel the need to remake this using Brennan Lee Mulligan from Dropout.tv.
Tell me more…
