The Hidden Ways Insects Support Animal Life!

 I didn't know lot of this; we live on an amazing planet with wonderful fellow species. 

Wonderful piece: 

Insects can be ecosystem engineers, meaning they create and maintain habitats for other species.

Termites and ants build massive structures below and above ground that are used by many other species. Termite nests, for example, serve as climate-controlled spots for reptiles to lay eggs and for parrots to nest. In dry regions, some frogs live inside ant nests to take advantage of the humid conditions, masking themselves in pheromones to evade detection by their ant hosts.

The soil surrounding termite mounds also provides good conditions for species such as naked mole rats and aardvarks to make their burrows. Ant nests concentrate nutrients that enhance plant growth, thereby creating good grazing habitat for species like gazelles.

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Many birds will deliberately nest near wasp nests so the threat of being stung deters potential predators. Some vertebrates even mimic insects to avoid getting eaten, such as young songbirds in the Amazon that move their heads to look like fuzzy caterpillars — which they resemble — when predators are nearby.

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Researchers have also discovered hundreds of medicinal compounds in insects, and there are likely many more to be found. For instance, chimpanzees will press flying insects into wounds, suggesting that they may have a medicinal effect, though people don’t yet know the exact insect species the chimps use.

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Perhaps even more important are all the many indirect effects insects have on the food supply. Small wasps are the only pollinators of fig trees, which provide fruit to over 1,200 vertebrate species. Many other plants also rely on insects as pollinators and have for millions of years, and vertebrates in turn rely on the seeds and fruit those plants produce.

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Another fascinating example are sloths and their moths. For a long time, it was a bit of a mystery why sloths would make the slow and dangerous journey to the ground to defecate once a week. As it turns out, sloths host a moth species that lives in their fur. The moths provide nutrients to the algae that grows in the sloth fur, which the sloth then eats. The algae also gives sloths a green tinge that helps camouflage them in the forest. The moths reproduce in sloth dung, and thus the sloth returning to the ground allows the moths to complete their life cycle.