100 Fun Facts About Insects

How many legs do all adult insects typically possess?

Adult insects have three pairs of jointed legs, all attached to the middle body section, whereas arachnids such as scorpions and ticks have eight.

An adult insect's body is typically divided into how many main segments?

The head carries the eyes, antennae and mouthparts; the middle section carries the legs and wings; the abdomen holds most of the internal organs.

Albert's swarm of 1875, the largest locust swarm ever recorded, held an estimated how many insects?

Albert's swarm was estimated at 12.5 trillion Rocky Mountain locusts, covering about 198,000 square miles, an area larger than California, and weighing some 27.5 million tons.

Which insect secretes the resin used for French polish and glossy candy coatings?

It takes an estimated 50,000 to 300,000 lac bugs to yield a single kilogram of shellac.

Which of these insects lives in highly organized colonies with a queen, workers and soldiers?

Ants are eusocial insects living in colonies of a few dozen to millions, with a division of labor: the queen, workers and soldiers each play a specific role in the colony's survival and reproduction.

Periodical cicadas of the genus Magicicada spend how many years underground before emerging en masse?

Magicicada broods emerge after 13 or 17 years underground; the prime-numbered cycles may stop them syncing with shorter-lived predators, and the nymphs spend about 99.5% of their lives below ground.

What is the largest living insect in terms of wingspan?

The White Witch Moth (Thysania agrippina), found in Central and South America, holds the record for the widest wingspan of any living insect, reaching up to 30 cm (12 in).

Which insect order has hardened forewings that protect the hindwings?

Beetles fold their membranous flight wings beneath these armoured cases, which lets them burrow and squeeze into tight spaces without damage.

Which solitary wasps mould nests from wet earth and stock each cell with paralysed spiders?

Mud daubers build mud nests; each cell holds one egg and up to a couple of dozen paralysed spiders, often crab spiders and orb weavers, on which the larva feeds.

Which insect blasts attackers with a boiling-hot chemical spray from its rear, with an audible pop?

The bombardier beetle mixes hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide in a reaction chamber, heating the spray to near 100 °C; one beetle carries enough reactants for roughly 20 blasts.

Members of the subfamily Phymatinae, which seize prey on flowers, are commonly called what?

Phymatinae are the ambush bugs; despite being only about a centimetre long, they routinely seize prey ten or more times their own size, including bumblebees.

Which extinct insect had a wingspan of up to 75 cm, making it one of the largest flying insects known?

Meganeura monyi, an extinct genus of griffinflies from the Carboniferous period, is renowned for its immense wingspan, estimated to be up to 75 cm (about 2.5 feet), making it one of the largest flying insects ever to have existed.

Which insect is often cited as the world's heaviest, one gravid female weighing about 70 grams?

A captive Little Barrier Island giant wētā (Deinacrida heteracantha) from New Zealand reached about 70 g, heavier than a sparrow; typical adult females average around 32 g.

What is it called when a harmless species evolves to resemble a harmful one?

Batesian mimicry is a form of mimicry in which a palatable or harmless species evolves to imitate an unpalatable or harmful species to deter predators. A classic example is a hoverfly resembling a bee or wasp.

Which body segment of an adult insect typically bears the wings and legs?

The thorax is the middle section of an insect's body, specialized for locomotion, bearing three pairs of legs and typically two pairs of wings.

What is the primary function of an insect's antennae?

Insects use their antennae primarily for sensory perception, including touch, smell, and taste, helping them navigate and find food or mates.

Which type of insect metamorphosis runs through four distinct stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult?

Complete metamorphosis, or holometaboly, takes an insect from egg to larva to pupa to adult, with big changes in appearance and lifestyle between stages.

Which of these insect orders is generally considered to have the largest number of described species?

Coleoptera, the order of beetles, is the largest order of insects, with more described species than any other order.

What are the external openings of an insect's breathing tubes called?

Insects respire through a system of tubes called tracheae, which connect to the outside environment through small, valve-like openings called spiracles located along their body segments.

What chemical compound do fireflies use to produce their light through a process called bioluminescence?

Fireflies produce light through a chemical reaction involving luciferin, an organic compound, and the enzyme luciferase, in the presence of oxygen and ATP.

The red food and lipstick colourant carmine (E120) is extracted from which insect?

Carmine comes from the cochineal, a scale insect farmed on prickly-pear cactus; carminic acid makes up 17–24% of the dried insect's weight, and Peru has long been the largest producer.

What is the primary method of communication for many social insects?

Many social insects, including ants and bees, primarily communicate through chemical pheromones, which can convey information about danger, food sources, and mating.

What is the 'blood' of insects called, which circulates nutrients but not oxygen?

Insects have an open circulatory system where hemolymph, their 'blood', circulates freely, transporting nutrients and waste but not oxygen, which is handled by the tracheal system.

What type of mouthparts do mosquitoes and aphids have?

Piercing-sucking mouthparts are specialized for penetrating plant or animal tissues and drawing out fluids, as seen in mosquitoes that feed on blood and aphids that feed on plant sap.

What is the primary role of a drone bee in a honey bee colony?

Drone bees are male honey bees whose sole purpose is to mate with a virgin queen, often from a different colony, to ensure genetic diversity.

What is the rigid chitin-based structure that supports and protects an insect's body called?

The exoskeleton is the rigid, external covering that provides support and protection for an insect's body, and is primarily composed of chitin.

What is the act of producing sound by rubbing body parts together called, as crickets and grasshoppers do?

Stridulation is sound made by rubbing body parts together, the standard communication of crickets and grasshoppers.

What do scientists call aphid nymphs being born already carrying the next generation's embryos?

Telescoping generations: an aphid nymph is born already carrying developing embryos of the next generation; reproduction is usually parthenogenetic and viviparous, so one female can found a colony without laying an egg.

Which insect's 'waggle dance' communicates the location of food sources?

Honey bees perform a complex 'waggle dance' to inform other worker bees about the direction and distance to profitable food sources.

Which disease is transmitted to humans by certain species of mosquitoes?

Mosquitoes are vectors for several diseases, including malaria, which is caused by a parasite transmitted through the bite of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes.

What is the process by which an insect sheds its old cuticle in order to grow called?

Ecdysis is the moult: the rigid cuticle cannot expand, so the insect splits it and climbs out; the discarded husk is called an exuvia.

What is the inactive, non-feeding stage between larva and adult in complete metamorphosis?

The pupa is a transformative, typically inactive and non-feeding stage during complete metamorphosis, where the larval body reorganizes into the adult form.

The first animals sent into space, aboard a US-launched V-2 rocket in February 1947, were what?

Fruit flies flew first, on 20 February 1947 on a V-2 from White Sands, New Mexico, and were recovered alive; the first monkey to reach space, Albert II, did not fly until 1949.

What is the primary food source for adult worker honey bees?

Worker honey bees forage for nectar, which they convert into honey, and pollen, which provides protein for the colony, especially for developing brood.

Which insect order includes grasshoppers, crickets, and locusts, known for their strong jumping legs?

Orthoptera is the order of insects that includes grasshoppers, crickets, and locusts, many of which are characterized by their powerful hind legs adapted for jumping.

Which type of eye, built from ommatidia, do most adult insects have?

Compound eyes are made of many ommatidia, each with its own lens pointing in a slightly different direction, so the mosaic image is coarse but exceptionally good at detecting movement.

Which of these insects is considered beneficial in gardens because it preys on aphids?

Ladybugs, also known as ladybirds, are highly valued in gardens and agriculture as natural predators of aphids and other soft-bodied plant pests.

What is the primary function of the worker bee in a honey bee colony, besides foraging?

Worker bees, which are non-reproductive females, perform a variety of essential tasks within the hive, including cleaning, nursing the brood, and constructing honeycombs.

Which mouthpart type is typical of a grasshopper?

Chewing mouthparts are considered the most primitive type and feature robust mandibles used for biting, tearing, and grinding solid food, as seen in grasshoppers and beetles.

What material do worker honey bees produce from glands on their abdomens to build honeycombs?

Worker honey bees secrete beeswax from specialized glands on their abdomens, which they then use to construct the hexagonal cells of the honeycomb.

Which insect order includes butterflies and moths?

Lepidoptera is the order of insects that comprises butterflies and moths, known for their scaly wings and complete metamorphosis.

Roughly how long do adult female Dolania americana mayflies, the shortest-lived adult insects, live?

Female Dolania americana live under five minutes as adults, just long enough to mate and lay eggs; mayflies are also the only insects whose winged form moults again, from subimago to imago.

Which insect's cocoons are unwound to make a luxury textile fibre?

The silkworm moth (Bombyx mori) is famous for its larva, the silkworm, which spins cocoons made of silk fibers that are harvested for textile production.

What common insect is a vector for diseases like Dengue fever and Yellow fever?

Mosquitoes, particularly species like Aedes aegypti, are well-known vectors for several viral diseases, including Dengue fever and Yellow fever.

Which insect order includes flies and mosquitoes?

Diptera is the insect order that includes all true flies, such as houseflies, mosquitoes, and gnats, characterized by having only one pair of functional wings.

What is the common name for the larvae of butterflies and moths?

The larval stage of butterflies and moths is commonly known as a caterpillar, characterized by its cylindrical body and voracious appetite.

Which of these is a social insect known for building complex nests called mounds?

Termites are highly social insects that live in colonies and are renowned for constructing elaborate nests, often in the form of large mounds.

What type of metamorphosis do grasshoppers and cockroaches undergo?

Incomplete metamorphosis, also known as hemimetaboly, involves three stages: egg, nymph, and adult, without a pupal stage. Grasshoppers and cockroaches are examples of insects that undergo this type of development.

Which insect is known for its impressive long-distance annual migration?

The monarch butterfly's eastern North American population heads south every late summer and autumn, from the northern and central US and southern Canada to Florida and Mexico.

What is the main defence mechanism of stick insects, the order Phasmatodea?

Camouflage in the form of plant mimicry, looking like twigs or leaves, is the defence most readily identified with stick insects.

Which insect order includes ants, bees, and wasps?

Hymenoptera takes in sawflies, wasps, bees and ants, many of them social insects.

What is the function of the labrum in an insect's mouthparts?

The labrum is a flap-like structure that serves as the 'upper lip' of an insect's mouth, helping to hold food in place during feeding.

Which of these creatures is an arachnid rather than an insect?

Spiders belong to a different arthropod class, with eight legs, two main body regions and no antennae.

What type of mouthparts does a housefly have?

Houseflies have sponging mouthparts, consisting of a fleshy proboscis with two spongy lobes (labella) at the end, used to soak up liquid food.

Mealworms, farmed by the tonne as animal feed, are the larvae of which beetle?

Mealworms are the larvae of the darkling beetle Tenebrio molitor; reared by the tonne for pet, poultry and fish feed, they are also sold as a human insect-protein food.

Which insect is a primary pollinator of many agricultural crops?

Honey bees are crucial pollinators for a vast number of agricultural crops, contributing significantly to food production worldwide.

What is the scientific term for the process of insect development from egg to adult?

Metamorphosis is the biological process by which insects undergo distinct physical and physiological changes during their development from an immature form to an adult.

Dolbear's law, published in 1897, lets you estimate the air temperature by counting what?

Physicist Amos Dolbear published it as 'The Cricket as a Thermometer'; count the chirps in 15 seconds and add 40 for a rough Fahrenheit reading.

What is the primary role of the queen bee in a honey bee colony?

The queen bee is the reproductive female in a honey bee colony, responsible for laying all the eggs that will develop into future bees.

Which insect is known for transmitting African sleeping sickness?

The tsetse fly is a blood-feeding insect endemic to Africa, notorious for transmitting trypanosomes that cause African sleeping sickness in humans.

What are the hardened forewings of beetles, which protect the hindwings, called?

Elytra, from the Greek for 'sheath', are the beetle's hardened forewings; the hindwings unfold from beneath them for flight, and in some flightless beetles the two elytra are fused shut.

Honey bees have which type of mouthparts?

Honey bees have chewing-lapping mouthparts, which combine mandibles for manipulating wax with a long, hairy tongue (glossa) for lapping up nectar.

What is the largest purely terrestrial animal native to Antarctica?

The flightless midge Belgica antarctica, only 2–6 mm long, is the sole insect that survives year-round on the continent; the first specimens were collected on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897–1899.

Certain desert-dwelling ants have specialised workers called 'repletes'. What is their job?

Their bodies become living larders that nestmates tap when food is scarce; the nests are found in arid and semi-arid regions.

The word 'insect' comes from a Latin word meaning what?

Pliny the Elder calqued the Greek 'entomon', Aristotle's term for animals that appear cut into segments.

Roughly how many insect species have been formally described and named?

About one million insect species have been formally described, with estimates putting the true total at perhaps 5.5 million, around half of all eukaryote species on Earth.

The African cicada Brevisana brevis, the loudest insect measured, reaches how many decibels at 50 cm?

Brevisana brevis registered 106.7 decibels at 50 cm, the loudest insect call recorded; cicadas make the sound with tymbals, ribbed membranes on the abdomen that buckle in rapid succession.

Cicadas, aphids and bed bugs all belong to which insect order?

Hemiptera, the true bugs, share piercing-sucking mouthparts; the order includes cicadas, aphids, bed bugs and shield bugs, and its name means 'half-wing' for the part-hardened forewings of many species.

Insects are eaten as food in roughly what proportion of the world's nations?

Insects are eaten in roughly 80% of the world's nations by some 3,000 ethnic groups, with deep-fried cicadas regarded as delicacies in places.

The value of insect pollination to US crops and fruit trees was estimated in 2021 at about how much?

A 2021 study put the value of insect pollination to US crops and fruit trees at about $34 billion a year; bees, butterflies, flies and beetles all take part in the work.

Leafcutter ants carry cut leaves back to their nests in order to do what?

The fungus feeds the larvae while adults drink leaf sap; if a type of leaf turns out to be toxic to the fungus, the colony stops collecting it.

Greenhouse tomatoes are pollinated commercially by which insects?

Bumblebees grab the flower and vibrate their flight muscles to shake pollen loose; commercially reared colonies, mostly Bombus terrestris and Bombus impatiens, pollinate greenhouse tomatoes worldwide.

Nurse bees feed which secretion to every larva for three days, and to some throughout development?

Royal jelly is fed to every larva for its first three days, but only future queens keep receiving it, which helps trigger the fully developed ovaries they need.

The larva of which insect digs a conical sand pit to trap passing prey?

Antlion larvae dig conical pits and wait buried at the bottom for prey to slide in; in North America they are nicknamed doodlebugs, after the winding trails they leave wandering across sand.

Ants 'milk' aphids for a sugary liquid called what?

Honeydew is the sugary excretion aphids release when ants stroke them; in return the ants drive off predators such as lady beetles, and bees that gather honeydew instead of nectar make dark 'forest honey'.

Butterflies' taste receptors are located mainly on which body part?

Butterflies taste mainly with their feet: contact chemoreceptors on the tarsi let a female check whether a leaf will feed her caterpillars before she lays eggs on it.

In true flies, the hind wings have evolved into small club-shaped organs called what?

Halteres beat in time with the wings and sense body rotation like tiny gyroscopes; in the parasitic strepsipterans it is the front wings that became halteres instead.

Males of which beetle can reach 17 cm including the horn, the longest of any beetle?

The Hercules beetle, Dynastes hercules, measures only 50 to 85 mm without its thoracic horn; it ranges from southern Mexico through Central and South America to the Lesser Antilles.

The Oriental rat flea is the primary vector of which disease?

Xenopsylla cheopis spreads plague: it picks up Yersinia pestis from rats and passes it on when it bites; it also carries murine typhus in the tropics.

Africanized bees spread across the Americas after escaping a 1957 apiary in which country?

At Warwick Kerr's experimental apiary near Rio Claro, Brazil, a visiting beekeeper removed the queen excluders and 26 swarms with their African-derived queens got out.

The globe skimmer, which migrates some 18,000 km over generations, is what kind of insect?

The globe skimmer is the dragonfly Pantala flavescens; it rides monsoon winds between India and East Africa, with individuals flying more than 6,000 km of the circuit.

Which moth is featured in The Silence of the Lambs?

The death's-head hawkmoth, genus Acherontia, bears a skull-like thorax marking; it raids beehives for honey and squeaks like a mouse when disturbed, which did nothing to calm old superstitions about it.

Queen Alexandra's birdwing, the world's largest butterfly, is found only in which country?

Ornithoptera alexandrae lives only in Papua New Guinea: females span more than 25 cm, yet the whole species survives in about 100 square km of coastal rainforest in Oro Province.

Crickets hear through eardrum-like organs located where on their bodies?

Crickets' tympanal ears sit on their front legs, just below the knee; the parasitic fly Ormia ochracea exploits the songs those ears are tuned to, homing in on calling males to lay its larvae on them.

The peppered moth of Victorian England is the textbook example of what?

Industrial melanism: the dark carbonaria form spread as soot blackened tree trunks; Michael Majerus's final experiment, published in 2012, tracked 4,864 moths over six years and confirmed birds really do pick off the poorly camouflaged form.

Which of these insects has a level-4 sting on Justin Schmidt's pain index?

The bullet ant's sting, Schmidt wrote, is like walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail in your heel; the venom's active ingredient is a paralysing peptide called poneratoxin.

African dung beetles are the only insects known to navigate using what?

Scarabaeus satyrus uses the Milky Way as a compass on moonless nights, rolling its ball away from the pile in a straight line; in 2013 experiments the beetles lost their bearings when the galaxy was hidden.

Epidemic typhus is spread between humans mainly by which insect?

The body louse, Pediculus humanus humanus, spreads Rickettsia prowazekii in its faeces; the same louse carries trench fever and relapsing fever, and a single dose of doxycycline cures epidemic typhus.

Millions of migrating butterflies overwinter in Michoacán, Mexico, on which type of tree?

The butterflies cluster on Abies religiosa through their winter diapause; illegal logging of the firs inside the biosphere reserve is an ongoing fight.

Army ants have no permanent nest; what is the living nest made of their own bodies called?

The bivouac is a ball of workers clinging to each other's legs; it looks chaotic but is highly organised, and soldiers swarm to its surface at the slightest disturbance.

The glowing larvae in New Zealand's Waitomo Caves belong to what kind of insect?

The Waitomo glowworm is the fungus gnat Arachnocampa luminosa, found only in New Zealand; its larvae hang sticky silk threads from the cave roof and light up to lure flying prey into them.

Who won a 1973 Nobel Prize for decoding the honeybee waggle dance?

Karl von Frisch shared the 1973 prize with Lorenz and Tinbergen; his bees signalled direction by the angle of the dance to vertical and distance by how long the straight run lasted.

Which brain chemical triggers desert locusts to switch from solitary to swarming mode?

Serotonin is the trigger: crowding and the jostling of hind legs raise its level, turning shy, solitary grasshoppers into a mutually attracted, nomadic horde within hours.

The world's longest insects, some over 60 cm with legs extended, belong to which order?

Phasmatodea, the stick and leaf insects, hold the record: a stick insect from Guangxi, China, informally called Phryganistria 'chinensis', reached about 64 cm with legs extended.

Female Photuris fireflies mimic the flashes of other species' females in order to do what?

Photuris females lure and eat the males of other species, mainly Photinus; these 'femme fatale' fireflies gain defensive lucibufagin chemicals from their prey, and their flashes mimic the prey's signals.

Clocked at 855 millimetres per second, which is the fastest known ant species?

The Saharan silver ant, Cataglyphis bombycina, forages at midday in temperatures around 47 °C, racing to finish before the sand reaches a lethal 53 °C; it is among the most heat-tolerant animals known.

The smallest known insects, under 0.2 mm long, belong to which family of tiny wasps?

Fairyflies (Mymaridae) include Dicopomorpha echmepterygis, whose wingless males are about 0.14 mm long; at that scale air behaves like syrup, so their fringed wings row through it rather than generating lift.

In 1860 Darwin wrote he couldn't believe a kind God had designed which parasitic insects?

Ichneumon wasp larvae eat caterpillars alive from the inside, which so troubled Darwin in his 1860 letter to Asa Gray that specialists have since proposed the name 'Darwin wasps' for the family.

Rhyniognatha, a candidate for the oldest known insect, is a fossil from which period?

Rhyniognatha hirsti comes from the Early Devonian Rhynie chert of Scotland, about 400 million years old; all that survives is a partial head with jaws, and some researchers think it may be a centipede-like myriapod.

Spongy moths became a US pest after escaping whose home in Medford, Massachusetts in 1869?

Trouvelot had imported them hoping to breed a hardier silk moth; the species has since spread through most of the hardwood forests of the eastern US and Canada.