AFRICA INSECTS

If you doubt the impact of insects, look through the natural history information for the animals included on this site and see how many of them include insects as part of the diet. Indeed, many African insects such as termites and grasshoppers are eaten by people. See for example the Congo Cookbook (leads offsite). Africa's insects include among the largest in the world and it is often said that without insects life as we know it could not exist. Without insects we could not enjoy butterflies, nor the flowers they and bees pollinate, and the world would be a much duller place. Without insects, dead things and waste would lie around much longer and the world would be a much dirtier and disease-ridden place. But insects also cause problems. A lot of our food goes to insects; witness the locust, a name synonymous with plague. Yet other insects cause deadly diseases—notably malaria, responsible for the deaths of millions. Given that insects are so important, we can't ignore them, and would be foolish to do so.