This document discusses the history and evolution of entomophagy (eating insects) in human diets. It argues that early hominins like Australopithecus likely consumed insects as an important source of protein and nutrients. As brain sizes increased over human evolution, dietary quality also needed to improve, which insects may have provided. Ethnographic examples show that modern foraging societies incorporate insects as a reliable food source. However, northern latitudes have fewer edible insect species due to climate and biodiversity patterns. The development of agriculture also reduced entomophagy as diets focused on domesticated plants and animals. The document aims to shift perspectives on entomophagy away from ideas of "taboo

1. Entomophagy and Evolution:
Eating Insects Past, Present,
and Future
Julie Lesnik
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI
entomoanthro.org
entomophagy anthropology

2. Jongema, 2012
2,040 recorded edible insects in the world

3. Why are
bugs not
common
cuisine
in the
US and
Europe?
entomoanthro.org

5. ©Little Herds

6. ©Little Herds

7. ©Little Herds

8. ©Little Herds

9. Food and Agriculture Organization
recommendations
• Further documentation of nutritional values
• Investigate environmental sustainability
• Clarify socio-economic benefits
• Develop legal framework for production
and trade

10. The need for anthropology
• Food is a major topic in anthropology
• Anthropologists look to understand why
people choose to eat, or not eat, certain
foods
• These reasons are vast

11. Biological Anthropology

12. “Last common ancestor”
A great ape, likely ate insects similar to the great apes today
(Social insects – ants, termites, honey)

13. Genus Australopithecus
Upright walking apes. Likely also the same as extant apes,
and we have some archaeological evidence that suggests
this as well

14. Homo erectus
Origins of foraging/division of labor as we understand it today.
Insects likely important to them as they are to foragers today.

15. Neanderthals
Occupying Europe during the last Ice Age.
Biodiversity is low, insects likely not part of their diets.

16. “Modern Humans”
Intensive agriculture works against entomophagy.
Rely on “fruits of labor” even to nutritional detriment.

17. Brain size
Brain Size

18. Diet Quality and Brain Size
Fish and Lockwood, 2003

19. Dietary Quality and Human Evolution
• We know brain size expands over the
course of human evolution
• We know that there is a positive
relationship between dietary quality and
brain size
• Humans must have increased dietary
quality over the course of their evolution

20. Early hominids
• Ape-like early ancestors and
australopithecines

21. Species Caste Preferred By Crude
Protein
(%)
Crude
Fat(%)
Fe
(mg/100g
)
M. muelleri** Soldiers Chimps 72 5 10
C. heghi** Workers Gorillas 15 13 2962
M. falciger* Alates Humans 21 22 _
* Phelps et al 1975
**Debalauwe and Janssens, 2008
Termite Preferences and Nutrition

22. Frugivorous chimpanzees
receive plenty of
micronutrients, but protein
requirements are more difficult
to meet
Folivorous gorillas receive
plenty of protein from leaves,
but micronutrient
requirements are more
difficult to meet
Photos: Abigail Lubliner & Rob Kroenert
Great ape termite preferences reflect
their diets

23. • Au. robustus has the
largest brain size for the
genus Australopithecus
• Increase in diet quality
• Eating more insects or
insects with greater
nutritional value - fatty
reproductive termites, for
instance - would aid in
this brain size shift

24. Australopithecus robustus
Swartkrans
About 1.7
mya

25. 3 cm
Photos: Backwell &
d’Errico, 2001
Pattern and width
of the striations on
the Swartkrans
bone tools match
that of tools used to
experimentally
excavate termite
mounds

26. Genus Homo
• Homo erectus is when we start seeing
brain and body size as well as behavior
that are clearly “human”

27. Ethnographic examples
• In attempting to reconstruct the
evolutionary significance of insects as
food, populations living at the
subsistence level are of most interest

28. The San
• When foraging, women may stop and eat termites all
day (Nonaka, 1996)
Photo:
Photographers
Direct

29. • Women average 15
minutes a day in
search of various
insect larvae
• They will take them
whenever
encountered (Hawkes et
al., 1982)
Photo:
F1 Online Photos
The Aché

30. The Arrernte
• Women,
accompanied by
their children, carry
digging sticks and go
out in search of
small fauna,
including social
insects that are
available year-round
(Bodenheimer, 1951)
Photo:
Spencer and Gillan, 1899

31. Sexual division of labor
• Women’s protein requirements increase by
50% when pregnant and lactating
• Insects may provide a reliable source of this
nutrient they can obtain even when
accompanied by small children
• This pattern of behavior could be expected for
our early ancestors as well

32. Jongema, 2012
SanAché Arrernte

33. Jongema, 2012
SanAché Arrernte
Tropic of Cancer
Tropic of Capricorn

34. Clinal variation: Change in frequency
over geographic space

35. Clinal variation: Change in frequency
over geographic space

36. Jongema, 2012
Tropic of Cancer
Tropic of Capricorn

37. Tropic of Cancer in China
• Passes through the Yunnan
province
Beijing
• Most of the
insect eating
in China
occurs here

38. Homo erectus
First hominid to leave Africa

39. 2.5 million years ago:
Plio-Pleistocene border
• Time of great climatic
variability, trending colder
• Many species of
mammals went extinct at
this time
• The origins of our genus,
Homo, coincides with the
time
– Intelligence and adaptability

40. Homo erectus
• Homo erectus appears around 1.8 mya in
Africa and quickly disperses, likely
following the coast line and keeping in
temperate zones

41. Neanderthals
• Successfully lived
in the coldest
climates from
~200k to 38k ya
• Utilized caves,
fire, and likely
clothing

42. Pleistocene
• 2.5 million to 11,700 years ago

43. Meat-based diets in modern foragers

44. Biodiversity

45. Latitudinal Diversity Gradient
• Widely recognized phenomenon in
ecology that there tends to be an
increase in species richness moving
towards the tropics
• No single explanation. Possible
combination of increased energy
availability and environmental stability

46. Latitudinal Diversity Gradient
• Gradient displayed for terrestrial mammals.
• Insects?
• From: Mannion et al. (2014), based on work by Clinton Jenkins.

47. Termite Diversity
• Worldwide there are over 280 genera
• There are 85 genera in the Afrotropics alone
(~1/3)
• 11 of these are known to be used as food
• In areas with less diversity, there are less
food options

48. Europe and North America?

49. Europe under ice until 18,000 ya

50. Europe
• In glaciated Europe, hunting would have been
primary subsistence
• Not long after the end of the Pleistocene,
cattle domestication occurs (about 10kya)
• With animal resources well-represented in the
diet, and insects being less plentiful at
northern latitudes, entomophagy is not likely

51. Peopling of the Americas
• The first people here had to survive
crossing Beringia

52. Peopling of the Americas
• The earliest people to arrive to the New
World likely did not eat insects
• As people migrated further and settled
in and around tropic zones, insect
eating may have been essential

53. Agriculture

54. Agriculture
• Agriculture allows for population sizes to
increase, especially in areas that cannot
support many people
– Islands
– High altitude
– Arid regions

55. Entomophagy lost
• It is well reported that with the origins of
agriculture, nutritional health decreases
• It appears that when energy is put towards
agricultural intensification, less energy is put
towards foraging, which reduces dietary
variability
• Where insect foraging is the easiest – the
tropics – we see entomophagy persisting

56. Global patterns of entomophagy
• I believe that the lack of entomophagy
in the northern latitudes is related to
long term occupation in these climates
where biodiversity is significantly less
than in the tropics
• Forest resources are not as available
and efforts go to more intensive
cultivation

57. Applications
• The anthropological perspective
• Shift away from the idea of “taboo” and
think of it more as circumstance of
geography and history.
• Raw fish was not “taboo” in NA/EU, it
was just not something we did..

58. May 26-28, 2016
eatinginsectsdetroit.org

59. entomoanthro.org