Insects and Invertebrates
The tiny majority. Most animals on Earth have no backbone at all, and their stories are enormous.
The first insects and invertebrates have arrived; the full branch is growing.
Where insects and invertebrates sit on the tree
Meet the stars
★ Monarch ButterflyA Map Written in WingsA butterfly lighter than a paper clip flies up to about 4,000 km to a mountain forest in Mexico that it has never seen.3 min story
★ Western Honey BeeShe Danced the Way HomeA honey bee tells thousands of sisters exactly where flowers grow by dancing an angle and a distance in the dark of the hive.4 min story
★ Giant Pacific OctopusThe Day the Rock BlinkedWith three hearts, blue blood, and one small beak as its only hard part, a giant Pacific octopus can pour itself through any gap wider than that beak.4 min story
★ Common Eastern FireflyThe Light That Costs NothingA firefly is a beetle whose glow comes from a chemical reaction so efficient that almost none of the energy becomes heat, only light.3 min story
★ Hercules BeetleThe Horn That Settled Every ArgumentA male Hercules beetle grows to about seventeen centimetres with its horn, one of the longest beetles alive, using that horn to lift rivals off branches.3 min story
★ Atlantic Horseshoe CrabThe Oldest Blue Blood in the WorldThe horseshoe crab's blue blood clots instantly around germs and has safety-tested vaccines for decades, and her kind predates the dinosaurs.4 min story