OUGD405 Studio Brief 02 Insect World: The Secret To Their Success Analysis

After my survey and analysis of the insect lie designs of the aggressors in Alien, I though it might be a good idea to look into positive representations of insects and why they might not have stuck in the public consciousness. So I have watched an episode of the documentary Insect world: the secret to their success.What is it that contributes to our fear of insects?

Is it their weapons? compared to us insects are armed up to the teeth!

Their ability to work together?

heir small size? It means they could be anywhere at any time and we would be unaware.

Is it their apparent status as the go to meal for half of the animal kingdom, despite which they seem to survive almost anything.

Their sometime misleading beauty?

Their ability to morph and change so quickly?

The way that they move?

The images below shop the defining features of an arthropod, which is the family in which insects sit. these are the oldest creature still alive today. Could this seemingly inexhaustible ability to survive be the route of our fear? Do they seem un stoppable and un-killable. They have been seen as unpleasant even in biblical times, for example the swarm/plague of locusts is something still feared in some areas. This suggests that our fears have routes in the fact that insects have distorted our food source before and are a constant threat to it. In their own way threatening our survival. Despite their size they do bare greater  threats.

They way that they exploit one another to survive is also unsettling.

Could it be something more simple than this? Purely an aesthetic that we are raised to believe is ugly through exposure to media in which this is enforced. Like the aliens in alien.

Above are some images of the smallest insect in the world, it is the tinker bell wasp. It is invisible to the human eye. Could this be a factor in our fear? The inability to see what we feel threatens us makes them seem all the more dangerous.

The way insects live, survive and reproduce is just so different from us. Is it this difference that scares us? Is it an ancient instinct to avoid the unknown to protect ourselves kicking in.

One stage in an insects development is often a lava stage. This is disgusting to u automatically, because of our connection between them and off food and unclean places that could pose a health threat to us. So perhaps there was once a sense in our fear.

Is it simply a deep instinct that responds to the aesthetic displayed by dangerous insects (as above), that we have been over cautious with and applied to all insects we feel display even the slightest signs of this?

As is shown above insects have the ability to fight off organisms that are many times their own size. this ability is not only threatening but could also illuminate another reason for our fear; the numbers insects come in. there are so many more insects than there are humans, they could be anywhere and everywhere.

Below shows a spider that fishes for its pray with a globe of sticky web.

As shown above the weapons that insects have developed to deal with the other organisms around them are undoubtably impressively successful. How long will it take to create a weapon that deals with us? Their advanced evolution rates make it a possibility.

The lava of a certain beetle forms a flower like ball on stems to cling onto bees when they land, feeding of them. Some of the most grusom aspects of the animal world involve insects.

There is also a wasp lava that tricks ants into looking after it and then eats the other lava once it has matured.

There is definitely something about rage numbers of insects and the suggestion that they are inescapable in some way that is particularly scary. Could this be because there are so many different types of insect that it is impossible to know what they would do? Once again this theme of the unknown seems to pop up.

Throughout tho documentary the tone has been of high parse of insects and there amazing abilities. This contrasts with other media representations. However, there is still a tone of the 'other' to the entire thing, they are beautiful but in an other worldly and different way. This could be the reason they are so often used for alien designs.

Facts and statistics from this documentary:

-An insects small size allows them to inhabit micro habitats.

-The diversity of arthropods has developed faster than any other group.

-Aphid young are born with more young already inside them.

- The fast reproduction of insects allows incredibly fast evolution.

- The fast mutation rate produces a hugely diverse gene pool.

- The diversity of insects allows them to live in numerous habitats.

-Huge numbers and great diversity means that insects can fill ecological niches faster than any other organism.

- Co-operation between insects can allow them to fight off organisms hundreds of times there own size.

- The way insects exploit one another is called co-evolution and it allows them to keep themselves at the peak of survival.

- Co-evolution is like an insect arms race.

- Insects are one of the oldest group of animals, when 99.9% of all organisms that have ever lived have become extinct.

-They are the most successful and diverse group of animals to have ever lived.