If we [humans] disappeared overnight, the world would probably be better off [making the point that the reverse is not true]. - David Attenborough

The coral's stinging armoury isn't used only for collecting food; they also use it to fight. As has been discovered only comparatively recently, corals, like many animals that live on land, are extremely territorial. But in order to see the battles, you have to speed up time.

No sooner has one been pushed out of the nest then a second will follow, until there is only one left. And that's what happens nearly always in a pelican's nest. That being the case, it seems rather inefficient, not to say heartless, that the pelican should always lay three eggs. But the reason is that it's partly an insurance policy, in case something terrible happens to one or two of the chicks, there's always a third left to carry on. And partly because, very rarely, when the fishing is very good, it is possible to raise more than one chick.

Wallace's emotions on discovering such marvels must surely be echoed by all of us who follow him. This is what he wrote: "I thought of the long ages of the past during which the successive generations of these things of beauty had run their course. Year by year being born and living and dying amid these dark gloomy woods with no intelligent eye to gaze upon their loveliness, to all appearances such a wanton waste of beauty. It seems sad that on the one hand such exquisite creatures should live out their lives and exhibit their charms only in these wild inhospitable regions. This consideration must surely tell us that all living things were not made for man, many of them have no relation to him, their happiness and enjoyment's, their loves and hates, their struggles for existence, their vigorous life and early death, would seem to be immediately related to their own well-being and perpetuation alone."