Word: fauna
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Here are a few things to keep in mind the next time ants show up in the potato salad. The 8,800 known species of the family Formicidae make up from 10% to 15% of the world's animal biomass, the total weight of all fauna. They are the most dominant social insect in the world, found almost everywhere except in the polar regions. Ants turn more soil than earthworms; they prune, weed and police most of the earth's carrion. Among the most gregarious of creatures, they are equipped with a sophisticated chemical communications system. To appreciate the strength...
...company's emphasis on environment reflects MacCready's most passionate concern. "My goal," he says, "is to have mankind reach a comfortable accommodation with the flora, fauna and resources of the earth. And that requires equilibrium after a while, not population increase, not consumption of irreplaceable resources, and certainly not wiping out all the flora and fauna as we are now doing...
Meier hopes his find will call attention to Madagascar's diverse but vanishing flora and fauna. One-quarter of Africa's plants exist only on Madagascar; more than 90% of the island's wildlife is unique. Agriculture has wiped out most of the forests and many animal species, including 14 types of lemur. Undiscovered species may lurk in the remaining jungle, but, warns Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, "unless their habitat is protected, they may all isappear...