Entomophagy: Human Consumption of Insects

In ancient times, when humans first appeared on the earth, insects might have been important foods for them, because they had neither tools to hunt large animals, nor techniques for agriculture. Since then, entomophagy has continued up to the present time all over the world. Human coprolites, which were found in some caves in the USA and Mexico, give evidence to the above consideration. From the coprolites found in caves of the Ozark Mountains located between Arkansas and Missouri, ants, larvae of beetles, lice, ticks and mites were isolated. On the wall of a cave of Artamila in North Spain, a picture showing the collection of wild bee nests was found. It is said that the picture was drawn about 9,000 to 30,000 years B.C. At that time people might have eaten bee larvae and pupae together with the honey. In Shanxi Province, China, cocoons of a wild silkworm, Theophila religiosae, were found from the ruins of 2,000 to 2,500 years B.C. Each cocoon had a large hole on it, suggesting that...