:11:01
- How many years of schooling did you complete?
- Twenty.
:11:04
After taking my undergraduate degree
at Bowdoin...
:11:06
I received my doctorate
from the Bussey Institute at Harvard.
:11:09
I took a position
as assistant professor of zoology...
:11:12
here at Indiana University.
:11:14
At first I studied
the Rhaetulus didieri...
:11:17
or stag beetle.
:11:18
Then I discovered
a far more fascinating insect.
:11:22
This is the American Cynipidae,
or gall wasp.
:11:27
Here the wasp deposits an egg...
:11:29
into its host plant.
:11:31
In this case, an oak tree.
:11:34
The adult wasp chews its way
through the tree...
:11:37
and copulates.
:11:40
At which point
it has the good sense to die.
:11:44
The animal kingdom includes...
:11:46
at least two million insect species.
:11:49
So, what makes the gall wasp
so fascinating?
:11:54
I've spent the last three years...
:11:56
crisscrossing the continent,
collecting gall wasps.
:11:59
And what have I learned from my tiny friends,
half the size of the household ant?
:12:02
That you need a date.
:12:04
Shh!
:12:06
After studying thousands of these pesky
creatures under the microscope...
:12:11
I've yet to find a single gall wasp
that's the same as another.
:12:14
In fact, some are so different...
:12:17
that the offspring of one generation...
:12:19
bear no more resemblance to their parents
than a sheep bears to a goat.
:12:23
There are those of us who might
take comfort in this fact.
:12:30
Consider the implications.
:12:33
If every single living thing is different
from every other living thing...
:12:37
then diversity becomes
life's one irreducible fact.
:12:41
Only variations are real.
:12:44
And to see them...
:12:46
you simply have to open your eyes.