Insect Conservation and the Entomological Society of America

Abstract

American Entomologist • Volume 54, Number 2 Some extinctions are inherently more iconic than others. The near-extinction of the bison, e.g., profoundly affected the Plains Indian tribes, whose existence was so dependent upon the species they were known as the Buffalo Culture (Flores 1991). Bison provided food, utensils, tools, and clothing, and their extirpation was not easily missed. General Philip Sheridan referred to the bison as “the Indians’ commissary” and credited hide hunters with permanently resolving the “Indian question” more decisively than the U.S. Army could after three decades of armed conflict. Even without cultural impacts, the near extinction of an animal that weighs 900 kg and travels in massive herds would have been hard to miss. In contrast, insect extinctions are rarely iconic because their human impacts are rarely direct, immediate, or obvious. They are also exceedingly difficult to document conclusively. The Lord Howe Island stick-insect, Dryococelus australis, thought to have gone extinct 80 years ago, was rediscovered in 2001 (Priddell et al. 2003); the giant Capricorn beetle, Cerambyx cerdo, believed extinct in Britain since the 18th century, was rediscovered in a Welsh carpenter’s shop in 2006 (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ news/uk/article680726.ece); and the short-necked oil beetle, Meloe brevicollis, recorded as extinct in Britain since 1948, was rediscovered in 2007 (http:// news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/6464531.stm). Despite the challenges, extinctions of 70 insect species have been documented in historical time (Dunn 2005). The actual number of extinctions is likely orders of magnitude higher, as suggested by comparison with more conspicuous animals. The status of almost all of the world’s 8,000 bird species and 12,000 mammal species has been evaluated; in contrast, less than 1% of the 900,000+ species of described insects have been evaluated according to the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature; www.iucn.org). According to the 2005 Animal Welfare Institute Endangered Species Handbook (AWI 2005), approximately 1,130 mammal species, 9% of the total, face the highest degrees of threat. If insects and mammals are equally vulnerable, then 84,600 of the world’s insect species might be in dire straits. The “thin red line” staving off extinction for American insects is the Endangered Species Act (ESA) adopted in 1973 and designed “to conserve imperiled species and the ecosystem upon which they depend.” The first invertebrate listed was the Schaus swallowtail butterfly, Papilio aristodemus ponceanus, in 28 April 1976; that listing was followed in June 1976 by 6 additional butterfly species Insect Conservation and the Entomological Society of America