Your News article documenting roughly 40,000 insect species in a single patch of the Amazon forest offers striking evidence of the immense, mostly unrecorded insect diversity concentrated in tropical habitats (see Nature 656, 282–283; 2026). Many of these species could disappear permanently before taxonomists even formally name them. Conventional protected-area strategies have historically prioritized vertebrate conservation and often overlook insects’ fine-scale habitat needs.