Читать книгу Life on Earth - David Attenborough, Sir David Attenborough - Страница 9

FOUR

The Swarming Hordes

By any standards, the insect body must be reckoned the most successful of all the solutions to the problems of living on the surface of the earth. Insects swarm in deserts as well as forests; they swim below water and crawl in deep caves in perpetual darkness. They fly over the high peaks of the Himalayas and exist in surprising numbers on the permanent icecaps of the Poles. One fly makes its home in pools of crude oil welling up from the ground; another lives in steaming-hot volcanic springs. Some deliberately seek high concentrations of brine and others regularly withstand being frozen solid. They excavate homes for themselves in the skins of animals and burrow long winding tunnels within the thickness of a leaf.