Current research: invertebrates

Why bother with bugs?

Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus)

Invertebrates often get overlooked in conservation as they are usually smaller and almost always less appealing than birds, mammals or flowers. There are exceptions: the attractive, such as dragonflies and butterflies; the unpleasant, such as scorpions and jellyfish; and the grotesque, such as octopuses and slugs. The rest are often fitted into the convenient – if unscientific – category of "bugs" and ignored. Yet perhaps 97% of all species are invertebrates and there may be up to ten million species of insects alone. And invertebrates play a vital (if often unseen) role in our planet’s existence: some pollinate plants, others scavenge and remove rotting matter, still others, such as worms, help make soils, and all of them may be part of the food chain for larger animals.

Invertebrate conservation is often unglamorous - you get more press coverage saving seals than slugs. Sometimes it may even seem bizarre; who really cares about the fate of some flatworm species? It is often challenging, too; peering down a microscope trying to work out which of a hundred species of fly you are examining is never easy!

Part of A Rocha’s beliefs are that all species, whether we consider them good, bad or ugly, have value. As such, we are involved with work on invertebrates in many places. In Portugal, the exceptionally diverse butterfly and moth faunas of the Algarve have been documented by A Rocha, and at Aammiq a whole range of poorly studied wetland invertebrates are currently being studied.

Dragonfly (Orthetrum albistylum)

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O Lord, what a variety of things you have made!
In wisdom you have made them all.
The earth is full of your creatures.
Here is the ocean, vast and wide,
teeming with life of every kind,
both great and small.

Psalm 104:24-25, NLT.