Science: No Backbones

In the competitive human world, a common platitude says that a man needs "backbone" to succeed. In the competitive animal world it is different. Scientists have other criteria than fame, money and power for measuring biological achievement. If they were polled they would probably award the gold medal of greatest biological success to the arthropods, a phylum (subkingdom) of invertebrates which includes crayfish, shrimps, lobsters, crabs, water fleas, barnacles, spiders, scorpions, ticks, insects. Reason: The phylum of arthropods (the name means "jointed legs") has the greatest number of species and individuals, occupies...

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