I was walking down our country lane in Spain, and saw thousands of caterpillars travelling from a field of Alfalfa to a field of Maize (North to South).  I have noticed this phenomenon before at this time of the year.  It only seems to happen when the temperature rises to about 25C and for about 3-5 days.  Can anyone identify the species and why this happens?

If I graphed the intelligence of each species on Earth I'm assuming (hopefully) that there is quite a gap between humans and the next one down on the list - presumably an ape of some sort. Would the graph be a straight line, logarithmic or exponential. I'm guessing that it would be exponential.

Is the gap between humans and the next one on the list out of proportion to the other gaps between species. If so - does that mean there is a species missing on the list or is there then something extra-ordinary about humans.

When looking at any other species of animal they all look virtually the same other than maybe a few things like weight and size, but when looking at facial or body features they are almost identical.

But when looking at the human species all males other than a few lookalikes or twins look different, likewise with females. Yes we all have two arms and legs, but i'm talking about facial features and body dimensions. Some ahev broad noses, some have long thin noses. These are not things you see in other species. Why is this so??

I recently read that during a change in earth's climate 70 per cent of the creatures became extinct.  If we can predict this can we predict how many species were alive, for example do we know at what point the most species lived on the earth?

Surely it is not now.