Henry Carter Hull

You might already have heard in the popular press about this disturbing trend: researchers have noticed that many insect populations are declining both in number and diversity. Although many animals have been affected by climate change and habitat loss, discover the human activities that have a disproportionate impact on insects—especially the use of pesticides.

Although we thought we invented agriculture, insects were using agriculture more than 50 million years before our arrival. Explore the world of the leafcutter ants; they can cut the leaves but not digest them. Instead, they feed the leaves to their fungus garden and eat the fungus, which provides them with a complete source of nutrients.

Most insects use sound to call for help and to attract a mate. With a variety of ways to produce sound, insects also have a variety of ways to hear. Consider the significance of sound for crickets, katydids, and cicadas, as well as the expansive and complex “vocabulary” of the bess beetles, with one species that uses 14 sounds to communicate among family members.

Forty million years ago—long before birds, bats, or flying pterosaurs—the skies were dominated by insects. Unlike every other subsequent flying animal, insect wings did not evolve from modified limbs; insects kept all six limbs and added wings. Explore a variety of flying insects and learn the unique physiology that gives them such precise control and maneuverability in the air.

One of the most profound ways insects have affected people throughout history is by transmitting disease. The worst offender? Definitely the mosquito. Mosquitos can transmit yellow fever, malaria, dengue fever, West Nile virus, Zika virus, and more. Discover the many methods we have used to try to cure this problem, and the many ways in which we've failed. But there is hope on the horizon.

Explore the many fascinating pairings in the coevolutionary dance between plants and insects. Step by step over millions of years, both insects and plants have developed ways to meet their own needs while increasing their value to their partners. No insects have done this better than the ants.

Biologist OCEAN RAMSEY (“Shark Whisper") credits her connection with sharks to years of research, but others feel it’s something more. Join Ocean and a team of biologists as they travel the globe trying to halt their looming extinction.

Killer whales are being hunted for sale into the exploding marine theme park industry. Witness the case against captivity, the Whale Sanctuary Project, and covert missions in search of captive orcas.

Narrated by Hollywood legend Dan Aykroyd - Defend, Conserve, Protect, pits the marine conservation group, Sea Shepherd, against the Japanese whaling fleet, in an epic battle to defend the majestic Minke whales of the Southern Ocean. At the helm of Sea Shepherd is 28-year old Captain Peter Hammarstedt who carries with him the resolve of Melville's Captain Ahab - only Hammarstedt hunts the whaling ships not the whales.

Text and drawings explain how to identify wild animals by the tracks and other signs they leave.