By Mera McGrew
Invertebrates, animals without backbones, are some of the world’s most abundant creatures. They can be found in nearly all ecosystems across the globe — swimming, flying, swarming, and floating. They thrive in NYC apartments, the depths of the ocean, and everywhere in between.
Making up an estimated 97 percent of all living species, invertebrates are truly nature’s unsung heroes, playing a key role in maintaining a healthy environment. “If human beings were to disappear tomorrow, the world would go on with little change,” famed biologist E. O. Wilson once wrote. However, if invertebrates were to vanish, he said, “I doubt that human species could last more than a few months.”
Invertebrates form the basis of numerous food chains, play a key role in the reproductive cycle of many plants, are used to assess overall habitat quality, and outweigh all the fish in the sea by both species and mass.…