Insect Facts
Insect Facts You'll Want To Know
With 10 to 20 million or more different species in existence, any compilation of insect facts could take up volumes. We'll stick to the basics, starting with a few basic facts, and then expanding our discussion to cover some additional facts of general interest.
Every once in awhile, there is a dire prediction that, if we are not careful, insects will take over the world. Don't look now, but that's already the case, and has been since man first walked the earth. It's not that insects rule over us, just that they outnumber us - by a bunch. The millions of insect species constitute over 95% of all animal species on the earth. Beetles alone account for around half a million different species, and as such, represent the largest of the insect orders.
Insects are arthropods, animals which lack a backbone, and all insects share four common characteristics. They have three primary body parts, the head, the thorax, and the abdomen. They all have 6 legs, two antennae, and an outside skeleton, or exoskeleton. Most, but not all, insects have wings.
A person who studies insects is called an Entomologist, and one who studies bugs is called a Bugologist. Are they not one in the same? A deeper look into insect facts will reveal that, while not all insects are bugs, all bugs are insects. We tend to refer to most insects as bugs, at least the smaller ones. That's OK, but not quite accurate. There are some 35,000 species of bugs (about 2% of the total number of insect species). True bugs are sucking insects, having a sucking mouth, called a stylet, used to suck juices from plants.
If beetles account for the largest number of species in the insect world, ants and termites share the distinction of having the largest total populations. Among the almost hard to believe insect facts is one revealing that if all the insects in the world were placed on a scales at one time, about 20% of the weight would be made up of ants and termites, so-called "social insects". It's little wonder that whenever you have a picnic, ants are often the first to arrive.
As is the case with most living things, insect species are made up of good guys and bad guys. Insects compete with humans for food, and in reality, eat more of the world's vegetation in any given time period than do humans. Some insects bite or sting, others spread diseases. It's been said that the insect most dangerous to humans is the common housefly, due to its capacity for spreading of germs and diseases. The good guys, of which there are many, keep the environment clean, by scavenging and eating decaying plant and animal matter. And of course there is the honey bee, the only insect which produces food for us, though in some cultures, insects themselves can form part of the human diet. All in all, there's a balance within the insect world which appears to work quite well.
Entomology can certainly be a fascinating pursuit; with more interesting insect facts out there than any one person can hope to document in a lifetime. When you next see an insect, or a bug, take time to give some thought as to whether it is a good guy or a bad guy. If it’s the former, leave it alone.