Arthropods

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Diaprepes abbreviatus, the citrus root weevil (class Insecta, order Coleoptera)

This page is for quotes about arthropods (phylum Arthropoda), both in general and about specific taxa.

[edit] Sourced

  • To a good approximation, all species are insects.
  • Happy the Cicadas live, since they all have voiceless wives.
    • Xenarchus (Grecian poet)[2]
  • The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
    Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.
  • An inordinate fondness for beetles
    • The (possibly apocryphal) response J. B. S. Haldane gave when asked what could be inferred about the mind of the Creator from the works of Creation. [3]

[edit] Unsourced

  • Nothing more than a little shrimp-like animal, standing on its head in a limestone house and kicking food into its mouth
  • Don't accept the chauvinistic tradition that labels our era the age of mammals. This is the age of arthropods. They outnumber us by any criterion – by species, by individuals, by prospects for evolutionary continuation.
  • If we live out our span of life on earth without ever knowing a crab intimately we have missed having a jolly friendship. Life is a little incomplete if we can look back and recall these small people only as supplying the course after soup and with the Chablis. - William Beebe, Nonsuch: Land of Water, 1932

[edit] References

  1. ↑ Quoted in Dawkins, R. (1989) The Selfish Gene p. 251
  2. ↑ Quoted in Darwin, C. (1876) Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
  3. ↑ Hutchinson, G. Evelyn (1959). "Homage to Santa Rosalia or Why Are There So Many Kinds of Animals?". The American Naturalist 93 (870): pp. 145–159.
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