"Well they [invertebrates] are actually the basis of all our ecosystems, they appeared on the earth, when the earth was absolutely naked with just a little green scum around the edge of the water, nothing living on land at all, there was life in the sea, this was four hundred and fifty million years ago and then things crept out of the sea and they are these things that are still there and the ecosystem developed from that. Now if we disappeared, if all backboned animals disappeared overnight the earth would get on ok, I mean by and large it could be said it would do rather better than it's being doing recently. But if they disappeared, half our planets wouldn't be pollinated. The plains of Africa and the meadows of Europe would be knee deep in dung. The whole basic life processes would disappear and we ourselves would become extinct very quickly, so these are the crucial things."
- Legendary nature documentarian Sir David Attenborough