Zoo InternQuest is a career exploration program for high school students. For more information see the Zoo InternQuest Journals. For more photos see the Zoo InternQuest Photo Journal.

They creep, crawl, wriggle, and squirm. They not only make up 85 percent of animal life on Earth, but they are essential to the survival of life on Earth. All the ants on the planet weigh roughly the same as the cumulative weight of all the humans on the planet. Something to think about next time you squash the six-legged uninvited guests at your picnic!

Paige Howorth, an animal care supervisor of arthropods, and Kelli Walker, an invertebrate keeper in the Insect House in the Children’s Zoo, showed us around the San Diego Zoo’s Insect House, affectionately called Spineless Marvels. According to Ms. Howorth, insects are “the last frontier” of animal biology. No one really knows how many insect species exist: at least one million species are identified and more are discovered each year. Meanwhile, many are lost every year due to habitat destruction. There may be millions more that we will never meet. And for both Ms. Howorth and Ms. Walker, the infinite possibility is exhilarating.

From leafcutter ants to rhinoceros beetles, the Zoo is home to around 40 different species of arthropods, a phylum that includes both arachnids and insects. But this variety and the population numbers constantly change as the species reproduce and the Zoo exchanges individuals with other zoos and museums nationwide.

But what is so special about the Zoo’s exhibit is the opportunity for visitors to get so close to these amazing arthropods. Many of the critters are rarely seen in nature because they would likely be underground or in hiding. The Zoo provides visitors with the chance to see a variety of invertebrates in displays that are specifically designed to encourage natural behaviors of the inverts and WOW! expressions from the humans.

When you visit the Spineless Marvels, you can see the bugs that make the world go round. From decomposers to carnivores, the behaviors of arthropods serve critical functions in an ecosystem. Although termites may seem an annoyance when they are chewing up the wood of a house, they are just doing their job: breaking down dead wood and recycling the nutrients into the soil for another organism to use. And although the huge spiders may scare you, their consumption of other insects helps keep pest populations such as flies and mosquitoes from flying out of control. Even if they scare your pants off, you can’t live without them.

Ronit, The Real World Team

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Scroll to the end to leave a comment. Pinging is not allowed.