Every species on this planet tells a story, an evolutionary novel packed with generations upon generations of knowledge. Letting those species disappear is like setting fire to every library on earth. All the information we could ever ask for – the key to understanding life itself – is right here. Snakes, spiders, and scorpions, bees and wasps and ants, jellies, fish, urchins, and octopuses, even the bizarre platypus: millions of years of trial and error, data we can never even hop e to accrue on our own, will be nothing if we don’t preserve the stunning biodiversity of this planet, and by doing so, safeguard biochemical riches.