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The
world of Of Western Australia |
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The
world of Of Western Australia |
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On these pages we want to share with you as we learn about the fascinating lives of insects. We observe insects in the wild, ask questions and seek to find answers. We do not claim to be scientists or 'Entomologists' or offer scientific explanations of what exciting secrets that insects reveal to us. We are just people who are interested and have taken the time to stop, look around and observe these remarkable creatures.
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Insects are so important to our ecosystem and environment. Even though a few insect species are pests to agriculture or households, the majority of insects are doing good things just by being there. Insects are a vital part of the food chain as they often eat plant material that every living creature must have in their diet. Think about how many animals eat insects! Without the insects we wouldn't have the animals that eat them. Insects are also great recyclers of plant material, getting rid of dead plants and leaves by eating it and putting nutrients back into the soil to make the living plants healthier. |
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Click on any of these creepy
crawly pages to get more cool photographs, videos and information. Please
respect our copyright. |
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Bugs |
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An insect has an exoskeleton. Which means it has a skeleton on the outside of its body, hardened plates or segments joined by soft tissue to protect the insect. Insects are invertebrates, they have no spine or skull. |
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Adult insects they have 3 pairs of legs, which are used for running, digging, swimming or capturing prey. These are the parts of the leg on most typical insects. (Do any of these names sound familiar?)
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Insects have one pair of antennae, which come in lots of different shapes and sizes. Antennae are a major sense organ, including the sense of smell. The number of individual segments making up the antenna help in identifying what the insect is. Here is a picture of a moth antenna magnified 60 times. A male moth uses these antennae to find the female moths by her scent that travels through the air. Take a good sniff, can you smell any female moths around?
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Antennae also help the insect to find their way. Even if they have good eyesight for an insect they wont be able to see very far. Antennae help the insect to know the size of a gap or to find the easiest trail. |
Insects generally have 3 body divisions; head, thorax (body) and abdomen. The head has 2 eyes, 2 antennas, mouthparts and palps that help to get the food into the mouth and to taste the food. And yes insects have a brain which sends messages around the body through the nervous system. The thorax is the middle section which is divided into 3 parts. They support the pairs of legs and wings if there are any. Near the middle leg is the breathing hole, insects don't breathe through their mouths or have lungs. See our crickets and grasshoppers for a picture of this. The abdomen contains most of the digestive organs, the breathing parts and the reproductive organs. |
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Most insects have 2 sets of wings. Sometimes one or both pairs of wings are reduced in size or even absent from some species. The fore wings of beetles are a toughened cover for their rear wings like in the spotted ladybirds.
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This is a flying ants (reproductive) wing magnified 200 times The veins on the wings give support to the wing. Each species of insect has its veins located in a different pattern, this helps to identify the insect. |
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As insects grow they get to big for their 'britches' or bodies and shed or moult off the whole exoskeleton, cicada's are a good example of this and are easy to find. Here below in the photo is an exoskeleton of a cicada. Each shedding is a growth stage and is called an instar. Insects range from having 3-8 instars but silverfish can have up to 50! Only when an insect has had its last instar is it an adult and then it can usually fly and reproduce. The insect keeps this last exoskeleton for the remainder of its life. |
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A Nymph- Incomplete Metamorphosis A nymph is an insect that is only in the first few stages or instars and hasn't developed wings yet, they will slowly develop their wings as they grow. Nymphs usually eat the same food and live in the same place as they will do when they become an adult. Nymphs don't go through a resting stage. Insects like grasshoppers, mantids and true bugs have nymphs. So an insect that is a nymph will first be an egg, then a nymph, then a bigger nymph, then a bigger nymph and then an adult. |
A Larva- Complete Metamorphosis A larva (one, or larvae more than one) is also a young insect but it will go through about 10 instars and then go into a pupa or chrysalis (resting stage where they do not eat or move) to change into the final adult, like butterflies, moths, beetles and flies. Larvae of different insects often have their own name eg; caterpillar for butterflies and maggot for flies. Larvae will often eat different food than when its an adult eg; caterpillars eat leaves but drinks nectar as a butterfly. Some adults of a larvae insect don't even need to eat as they stored enough fat when they were larvae. They spend all their time reproducing. So an insect that is a larva will start as an egg, then be a larva, then grow to a mature larva, then rest as a pupa or chrysalis and then emerge as a changed adult. |
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On each page we will throw at
you some weird stuff. You decide if its true or not.
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What is not an insect? A spider, scorpions, ticks and
mites, millipedes, centipedes or woodlouse.
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There are many
sites on the internet and many books in the library about insects. This site has some photographs of insect body
parts
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All Content, written
and graphical Copyright © Wildlife Education Services 2003. |
