Under The Carpet Nature’S Cleanup Creatures Are Its Unsung Heroes

Humans have a weakness for heaping inordinate attention on superstars, whether the forum is a stage, a court or even a forest.

The spotlight seems to shine on elk in a meadow and wild turkeys in full strut. Necks crane to see bear cubs clawing at a beehive. Heads turn for a passing bald eagle.

Yet in the odd case that we should even notice a bug on our march to save a whale, the inclination is to stamp on it to see how far the body fluids splatter.

While this dichotomy may never be resolved, here’s a secret to tuck away for a weak moment of open-mindedness:

The world’s unsung heroes can be found easily by dropping to your knees. Under nature’s carpet are the animals we couldn’t live without.

By processing dung, carrion and other ordure spurned by more discriminating beasts, insects and other bugs keep the Earth’s surface clear of debris.

Earthworms are among the most appreciated of lowly life, although it’s merely a bonus that trout like to eat them.

Without the earthworm’s zeal for churning the soil and recycling organic matter, plants would wilt and ground could pack to the hardness of concrete.

Entomologists joke that people are so squeamish about bugs that they shy from peering close enough to name them correctly. Centipedes don’t have 100 legs, and millipedes certainly don’t have 1,000.

Not that we haven’t had time to look.

On the ground we find centipedes and other survivors of ancient animal groups that have been around for hundreds of millions of years.

Humans are latecomers wherever they break ground. Outnumbered, too.

The bulk of the Earth’s biomass lives on or just below the Earth’s surface.

An average pasture will hold roughly 4 pounds of bird life per acre, 40 pounds of mammals and 400 pounds of bugs.

For every time a cougar sinks its teeth into the neck of a deer, millions of similar dramas occur in the dirt as bugs feast on other bugs to keep our world in check.

Nature’s cleanup crew is hard at work day and night, as obscure as the after-hours janitor.

Salamanders are among the most secretive, preferring out-of-the-way places under rocks or rotting logs. Both predator and prey, they stalk with stealth for whatever squirms and fits in their mouths. They wriggle and appear to swim across the ground when pursued.

In channeled scabland ponds, where fish are rare, salamanders and their larvae are important food for creatures such as herons and grebes.

Salamanders roam naked in the forest humus without the scales, feathers or hair that grows from the skin of other vertebrates. They simply slime their bare skin with mucous.

Curiously, though, they seem to be creatures of virtue.

Despite being undercover where they could enjoy the most titillating rituals, salamanders have evolved a courtship that culminates with nothing spicier than transferring a sperm packet.

If there’s no moral there, then there must be something else to learn from the masses of creatures at our feet.

Certain bugs have evolved to pester us while we’re alive. Others wait to feast on us when we’re decomposing in the ground.

This is a side of nature people have yet to accept. We spray pesticides to keep our contact with bugs to an absolute minimum, yet most of the ground around us remains infested.

Thank God.