Flash
24/6/24
Insect Week
It is Insect Week…but what are insects? There are so many different minibeasts in the world but they are not all insects. Insects include creatures such as ants, bees, grasshoppers, dragonflies, beetles and butterflies.
Insects are invertebrates, which means they don’t have a backbone. Instead they have a hard shell called an exoskeleton protecting their bodies. Insects have three parts to their bodies, a head, thorax and abdomen. They all have six legs and two antennae. Many insects also have wings and can fly but some don’t.
For such tiny creatures they are incredibly important. Without insects many crops couldn’t pollinate and food that humans rely on wouldn’t grow.
Top 10 Insect Facts
1. Around 75% of all creatures on Earth are actually insects…that’s a lot of insects! There are over one million known species of insects on Earth and probably lots more that haven’t even been discovered yet! They can be found in almost every habitat on Earth.
2. Most insects hatch from eggs. As they grow bigger their exoskeleton cannot get any bigger so they moult it and grow another one.
3. Some types of insect go through major changes called metamorphosis. They hatch from an egg as a type of larva, getting bigger and bigger until it’s ready to change into its adult form, inside a pupa or chrysalis. Butterflies, moths and bees are examples of insects that go through this process.
4. There seems to be more insects in the summer than winter. This is because many insects actually hibernate during the colder months.
5. Some insects are really strong. Ants can carry things up to 100 times their body weight, a bee up to 50 times their body weight and a Dung Beetle can carry over 1000 times its weight! This helps ants to bring food back to their nest and bees to carry as much pollen as they possibly can back to their hive. What do you think Dung Beetles are carrying?!
6. One of the biggest species of insect in this country is the Stag Beetle and they can grow up to 7.5cm long but some beetles around the world can grow to around 18 and 19cm long.
7. The biggest butterfly in the world is called a Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing. It has a wingspan of around 28cm. Can you imagine a butterfly that big? It is found in the rainforests in Papua New Guinea, a country near Australia.
8. The most common insect in the world is ants. There are trillions of ants on Earth and more than 10,000 different species.
9. There are many species of insects that are extinct, or endangered and in danger of becoming extinct. Some people think up to 40% of insect species could be endangered.
10. Some people enjoy eating insects, in fact in some places around the world it is very common. People eat all sorts of insects, such as beetles, ants, crickets and grasshoppers.
Want to find out even more?
All photos and illustrations in this blog post are Whizzbots, Public Domain or Shutterstock images.