Text: Marie Le Breton

Try to choose a moonless night. Prepare to hike for several hours into the depths of the primary forest. Set up camp at dusk and install the trap: a large, brightly lit, white sheet. Only then can the ballet begin. Glow-worms open the ball, soon to be followed by butterflies, locusts, weevils and grasshoppers. The harlequin beetle in its black and red finery will join the party before the clock strikes midnight. Come dawn, the huge Titan stick-insect (nearly twenty centimeters long) brings the party to a close. The waltz of insects on the sheet cannot fail to pique the curiosity of anyone’s “inner entomologist.” Poised to pounce in these shadows, however, is a professional, employed by Entomed, a French company which has made a specialty of insects offering potentially great therapeutic value. A field team periodically goes to French Guiana to collect specimens of the precious invertebrates. “The most promising species are those with warning coloration: their appearance tells predators that they are armed with toxic substances and able to defend themselves,” explains the company’s entomologist. Those toxic substances have recently kindled the interest of scientists because they may offer new medicinal properties to treat infections and cancer. That possibility is ample justification for these exotic expeditions! To provide its chemists with a variety of plunder, Entomed has signed agreements with a worldwide network of suppliers, always complying with the provisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Global “bug-collecting” support is essential given that 900,000 species have already been catalogued and millions more have yet to be discovered, creating tremendous opportunities for research and the prospect of new treatments for human ills.