Gibbons, Matilda; Sarlak, Sajedeh; Chittka, Lars (13 July 2022). "Descending control of nociception in insects?". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 289 (1978): 20220599. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2022.0599. PMC 9257290. PMID 35858073. S2CID 250284130. From there, the pharynx passes food to the esophagus, which could be just a simple tube passing it on to the crop and proventriculus, and then onward to the midgut, as in most insects. Alternately, the foregut may expand into a very enlarged crop and proventriculus, or the crop could just be a diverticulum, or fluid-filled structure, as in some Diptera species. [76] :30–31 Midgut It’s really important for kids to explore the bug life in their garden because it’s been proven that being connected to nature makes you happier.”

Catch ’em young Erica. Tempt them with key facts, some almost unbelievable and some utterly disgusting. Titillate and tantalise them. Then slowly reel them in. From her secret laboratory in a dormant volcano, or maybe in the vaults of the Natural History Museum, Dr McAlister has a dastardly master plan to indoctrinate the children of the world into becoming entomologists, and it’s useless to resist. Lozano-Fernandez, Jesus; Giacomelli, Mattia; Fleming, James F.; Chen, Albert; Vinther, Jakob; Thomsen, Philip Francis; Glenner, Henrik; Palero, Ferran; Legg, David A.; Iliffe, Thomas M.; Pisani, Davide; Olesen, Jørgen (2019). "Pancrustacean Evolution Illuminated by Taxon-Rich Genomic-Scale Data Sets with an Expanded Remipede Sampling". Genome Biology and Evolution. 11 (8): 2055–2070. doi: 10.1093/gbe/evz097. PMC 6684935. PMID 31270537. The head houses the insect’s brain, mouthparts, and sensory organs including the eyes and antennae. An insect has a pair of large compound eyes and up to three simple eyes. Insects live in nearly every habitat, and it’s estimated that there are currently 10 quintillion insects on the globe. So far scientists who study bugs, called entomologists, have named one million insect species but studies estimate that four million are still uncategorized. The Johnston’s organ is extremely sensitive to movement of the uppermost parts of the antenna. The insect uses it to detect vibrations in the air. It plays a part in communication and in flight stability. ThoraxThese giant spiders from the rainforests of South America are heaviest spiders on Earth. No other spider can match the Goliath Birdeater‘s mass and size. This large type oftarantula is poorly named. The Goliath Birdeater has only rarely been observed eating birds.

Kapoor, V.C.C. (1998). Principles and Practices of Animal Taxonomy. Vol.1 (1sted.). Science Publishers. p.48. ISBN 978-1-57808-024-3. Kendall, David A. (2009). "Classification of Insect". Archived from the original on 20 May 2009 . Retrieved 9 May 2009.

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The main structure of an insect's digestive system is a long enclosed tube called the alimentary canal, which runs lengthwise through the body. The alimentary canal directs food unidirectionally from the mouth to the anus. It has three sections, each of which performs a different process of digestion. In addition to the alimentary canal, insects also have paired salivary glands and salivary reservoirs. These structures usually reside in the thorax, adjacent to the foregut. [31] :70–77 The salivary glands (element 30 in numbered diagram) in an insect's mouth produce saliva. The salivary ducts lead from the glands to the reservoirs and then forward through the head to an opening called the salivarium, located behind the hypopharynx. By moving its mouthparts (element 32 in numbered diagram) the insect can mix its food with saliva. The mixture of saliva and food then travels through the salivary tubes into the mouth, where it begins to break down. [74] [75] Some insects, like flies, have extra-oral digestion. Insects using extra-oral digestion expel digestive enzymes onto their food to break it down. This strategy allows insects to extract a significant proportion of the available nutrients from the food source. [76] :31 The gut is where almost all of insects' digestion takes place. It can be divided into the foregut, midgut and hindgut. See also: Defense in insects Perhaps one of the most well-known examples of mimicry, the viceroy butterfly (top) appears very similar to the monarch butterfly (bottom). [139] During metamorphosis an insect’s body undergoes changes, which in some groups can be substantial (think how different an adult butterfly is to a caterpillar). a b Stork, Nigel E. (7 January 2018). "How Many Species of Insects and Other Terrestrial Arthropods Are There on Earth?". Annual Review of Entomology. 63 (1): 31–45. doi: 10.1146/annurev-ento-020117-043348. PMID 28938083. S2CID 23755007.

As pollinators, insects play a vital role in supporting life on Earth. By assisting the first step of the food chain, insects enable energy from the sun to flow all the way up to the top predators. Insects have segmented bodies supported by exoskeletons, the hard outer covering made mostly of chitin. The segments of the body are organized into three distinctive but interconnected units, or tagmata: a head, a thorax and an abdomen. [61] The head supports a pair of sensory antennae, a pair of compound eyes, zero to three simple eyes (or ocelli) and three sets of variously modified appendages that form the mouthparts. The thorax is made up of three segments: the prothorax, mesothorax and the metathorax. Each thoracic segment supports one pair of legs. The meso- and metathoracic segments may each have a pair of wings, depending on the insect. The abdomen consists of eleven segments, though in a few species of insects, these segments may be fused together or reduced in size. The abdomen also contains most of the digestive, respiratory, excretory and reproductive internal structures. [31] :22–48 Considerable variation and many adaptations in the body parts of insects occur, especially wings, legs, antenna and mouthparts. Tscharntke, Teja; Klein, Alexandra M.; Kruess, Andreas; Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf; Thies, Carsten (August 2005). "Landscape perspectives on agricultural intensification and biodiversity and ecosystem service management". Ecology Letters. 8 (8): 857–874. Bibcode: 2005EcolL...8..857T. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2005.00782.x. S2CID 54532666. Belostomatidae is a family of insects better known as “giant water bugs” or “ toe-biters.” Most species in the Belostomatidae family are relatively large (2 cm or more) with some of the largest, such as Lethocerus, exceeding 12 cm, and nearly reaching the dimensions (length and mass) of some of the larger beetles in the world. For the moment, however, our insect future in the west feels rather beige: highly processed products enriched with insect protein powder – as opposed to grasshoppers with guacamole, or the lake fly dumpling stews that Dr Ayieko conjures. And it’s worth stressing that for all the talk of insects as a state-of-the-art protein for westerners, for many people, insects are a food of the present – and an endangered one, too.

Schneiderman, Howard A. (1960). "Discontinuous respiration in insects: role of the spiracles". The Biological Bulletin. 119 (3): 494–528. doi: 10.2307/1539265. JSTOR 1539265. Archived from the original on 25 June 2009 . Retrieved 22 May 2009. The first Insects appeared around 400 million years ago – that’s over 150 million years before the dinosaurs. Since then they’ve adapted to carry out many roles within many different ecosystems, overcoming several global extinction events in the process (including the Cretaceous – Paleogene Extinction Event that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs). Other arthropod characteristics include a segmented body and an even number of jointed appendages (i.e. legs and antennae). The word ‘arthropod’ is derived from the Greek for ‘jointed foot’. Insect Characteristics All insects have six legs, two antennae, and bodies that are divided into three main sections. Photo: Katja Schulz (Cropped / resized by ActiveWild.com) [ CC BY 2.0] Six Legs Jacobs, C. G.; Rezende, G. L.; Lamers, G. E.; van der Zee, M. (2013). "The extraembryonic serosa protects the insect egg against desiccation". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B. 280 (1764): 20131082. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2013.1082. PMC 3712428. PMID 23782888. Hemimetabolous insects, those with incomplete metamorphosis, change gradually by undergoing a series of molts. An insect molts when it outgrows its exoskeleton, which does not stretch and would otherwise restrict the insect's growth. The molting process begins as the insect's epidermis secretes a new epicuticle inside the old one. After this new epicuticle is secreted, the epidermis releases a mixture of enzymes that digests the endocuticle and thus detaches the old cuticle. When this stage is complete, the insect makes its body swell by taking in a large quantity of water or air, which makes the old cuticle split along predefined weaknesses where the old exocuticle was thinnest. [31] :142 [93]