Ants make up two-thirds of the biomass of all the insects. There are millions of species of organisms and we know almost nothing about them.
If we study Nature attentively in its great evolutions as in its minutest works, we cannot fail to recognize the possibility of enchantment - giving to that word its exact significance.
I still try to keep my eyes open. I'm always on the lookout for antlion traps in sandy soil, monarch pupae near milkweed, skipper larvae in locust leaves. These things are utterly common, and I've not seen one
Biology can be divided into the study of proximate causes, the study of the physiological sciences (broadly conceived), and into the study of ultimate (evolutionary) causes, the subject of natural history.
Frogs will eat red-flannel worms fed to them by biologists; this proves a great deal about both parties concerned.
A tiny fly can choke a big man.
While Occam's razor is a useful tool in the physical sciences, it can be a very dangerous implement in biology. It is thus very rash to use simplicity and elegance as a guide in biological research.
The highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.
We should venture on the study of every kind of animal without distaste; for each and all will reveal to us something natural and something beautiful.
In fact, quantitative findings of any material and energy changes preserve their full context only through their being seen and understood as parts of a natural order.
I am mad for nature writing. I want to get inside the head of every creature in the world, even ants.
A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will be opened, on the causes and laws of variation, on correlation of growth, on the effects of use and disuse, on the direct actions of external conditions, and so forth.
If plants could be credited with reasoning powers, we would marvel at the imaginative ways they bribe or ensnare other creatures to carry out their wishes.
