More than a million species of arthropods –cold-blooded creepy-crawlies including all insects — crawl and buzz around us outdoors and indoors, aboveground and underground, in our plumbing systems, in our food and on our bodies.
Like them or not, they do essential tasks like pollinating our crops, aerating farmland and sustaining an enormous diversity of predators from warblers to wolverines.
Yet despite arthropods’ crucial importance to the environment and humanity, and amid concerns that some of these populations are dwindling, scientists did not know how many are really out there and how much they weigh collectively.
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