This is a HeadGum Podcast. I don't know what you think I don't know what to say

you're the got to right

yeah it's okay

I don't know anything.

Hello, welcome to factually, I'm Adam Conover.

And if you go around the classroom of kindergartners and ask them for their favorite animal, chances are they'll choose something big vertebrate and mammalian, right? We're talking elephants, pandas, lions and dolphins, hippos, wolves and giraffes.

You know there might be one kid in the class who picks a platypus or something, but he just wants attention.

Okay, Tevin, Simmertown.

There's a term of art used by conservationists for these big, cool attention-sucking beasts.

They call them, quote, charismatic mega-fauna.

Fauna for animal, mega for big, and charismatic for sick as hell, right?

No question, charismatic megafauna are sick as hell.

But that doesn't mean they should be our only or even our main focus in conservation.

If you take a look at any patch of ground or hillside, you'll see that there are far, far more

tiny critters than huge ones.

We live in a world of bugs, really, and right now those bugs are being wiped out.

Insect declines in recent decades are giant and dire. The statistics

here will blow your mind. A major study from last year found that 41% of insect species, all insect species, are in decline.

That's twice the rate of decline for vertebrates.

That study also found that one-third of all insect species are in danger of going extinct, a third of them.

50% of butterflies are declining or threatened, around 44% of bees and ants and 40% of dragonflies. So look if you were hoping to propose

your beloved on a summer evening at a riverbank lit only by lightning bugs, tough

...