Henry Gee

And they lay their eggs on the larvae, the maggots and the grubs and the caterpillars of other insects.

and they develop inside the caterpillar or whatever and eat it from the inside.

Sometimes two different parasitoids lay their eggs on the same caterpillar and the larvae grow up into tiny little soldiers that actually fight wars inside caterpillars.

But these things get their just desserts because they're all infected by different kinds of bacteria.

And some of these parasitoid wasps

have parasitoids that parasitize them, called hyperparasitoids.

So, you know, big fleas have little fleas.

And these things go on all around you in every garden, in every forest, in every woodland, even today.

A teaspoonful of soil contains an unbelievable richness of life.

Life is absolutely everywhere, from the depths of the ocean up into the atmosphere.

So the Cambrian is where animal life really had its first flowering.

But once life gets established, it's very, very hard to get rid of.

I mean, the Earth has tried many times to get rid of life, and us humans are also having a good go at trying to get rid of a lot of life.

But it usually bounces back on the amazing interconnections that are formed by creatures that we hardly know exist.

I mean, everyone knows about tigers and pandas and rhinos and dogs and cats.

But these tiny, tiny creatures, like each fungus has a fungus fly that only lives on that fungus.

And each fungus has fungi that grow on the fungi.

And each of those fungi that grow on the fungi have their own fungi and fungus flies.

It's kaleidoscopic, man.

Could there still be some Cambrian relics out there at the depths of the oceans?