Self is so glad she is reading this book! There was a review in the Wall Street Journal, last August. She saved the review for months, finally got the book from the local library.
The Butterfly Effect, Chapter 1 (The Bug in the System):
- “Insects evolved around 480 million years ago . . . ” whereas “the earliest fossil evidence for anatomically modern Homo sapiens — discovered on a tree-speckled savannah in 2017 at Jebel Irhoud, Morocco – is a mere three-hundred thousand years old.”
- Moreover, insects used to be giant. For example: There were “gargantuan” Meganeura monyi (dragonfly-like griffinflies) with “two- to three-foot wingspans” which “made them the size of small hawks.”
- Their decline in size was likely due to “the evolution of predatory birds” as well as “reductions in atmospheric oxygen levels.”
Kanlaon 