Highly diverse and charismatic, these creatures deserve recognition as a sixth great extinction dawns
We are prone to obsessing over ourselves and over animals like us. But most of the life on Earth is not like us at all. Barely 5% of all known living creatures are animals with backbones. The rest – at least 1.3 million species, and many more still to be discovered – are spineless.
All hail the invertebrates, animals of wondrous diversity, unique niches and innovative and interesting ways of making a living on this planet. They include insects (at least a million), arachnids, snails, crustaceans, corals, jellyfish, sponges and echinoderms.
Our first nominee: the glorious glowworm
