“So we’ve got all these different critters inhabiting specific ecological niches, with each occupying its own role in a shared ecosystem,” Hirsh said, sounding to all the world like an arboreal nymph. “If one role isn’t fulfilled, the entire food web is thrown off balance.”

Students later interpreted her hour-long, thoroughly-researched lecture about Darwin’s Survival of the Fittest as a whimsical tune about fields of lavender.

“The evolution of critters is indeed complex, made all the more convoluted by the drifting of continents throughout various periods of Earth’s history,” Hirsh said, as if surrounded by a cute little aura of glittery air. “As a result of tectonic movement, we’ve found fossils of almost identical critters around entirely different parts of the globe.”

“Admittedly, there’s a lot we don’t know about how critters interact with one another and their surrounding habitats,” Hirsh continued, appearing to the class as a dainty, lute-plucking sprite. “But we do know that no critter is purposeless, and every critter needs all others to function as they should to keep the environment intact.”

At press time, an archaeology professor was referencing stone tools like he was a paleolithic cave-dweller scratching line drawings into the side of a cliff.