Insects

InsectsInsects are everywhere in the world around us. Insects live in more different kinds of places than any other group of animals. The live in deserts, in forests, on tops of mountains, in rainforests, in water, in caves, and even in frozen places like Antarctica. They live in books and in clothes, under tree bark, in pools of petroleum, and even inside other animals. They come in many sizes, shapes, and colors.

However, all insects do have a few things in common. Their bodies are divided into 3 parts: the head, the thorax, and the abdomen.

Head

Most insects have compound eyes that are made up of hundreds of tiny lenses. These eyes are very large in comparison to the rest of the insect's head, and they extend low down on the cheeks toward the jaws. Compound eyes are able to detect even the slightest movement which often makes insects very difficult to catch or swat. Compound eyes also detect color. In addition, most insects also have 3 simple eyes called occeli that are made up of a single lense. These eyes are sensitive to changes in brightness and may tell the insect if it is day or night.
Most insects also have 2 antennae on their heads. These help them detect air movements, vibrations, and smells. This information helps them find food, protect themselves, and even find out information about a potential mate. Antennae come in many sizes and shapes. Some are so short that you can hardly see them (like on a fly). Others are longer than the insect's body (like on a cricket). Antennae may look like feathers, threads, strings of beads, or clubs.
Insects mouths come in 4 different kinds: chewing (like a grasshopper), piercing (like a mosquito), sucking (like a butterfly), and sponging (like a fly).
Insects do not have regular ears. Sounds are really just vibrations in the air. Most insects detect sounds by hairs on their bodies that can pick up these vibrations. Some insects use their antennae to pick up vibrations.

Thorax

The thorax is the middle part of an insect's body. The thorax contains the legs and wings. The thorax, itself, is divided into 3 parts. Each part contains a pair of legs. These legs are jointed. When insects move, they usually move 3 legs at a time. They move the front and back legs on one side and middle leg on the other side. The other 3 legs remain on the ground and form a triangle that helps the insect keep its balance. (Test this information and see if it's true. Observe an insect moving in your backyard or in your schoolyard. OR Capture an insect and put it into some kind of large clear container. Watch it move and observe which legs it uses.) Because insects always have one more leg moving or pushing on one side than on the other, they tend to walk in a slightly zigzagged fashion. The legs of an insect are designed to help meet its specific needs. Insects that dig burrows have front legs that look like shovels. Some insects have strong front legs that are good for fighting or catching other insects. Jumping insects have strong back legs. Swimming insects have middle and back legs that are flattened and look like paddles. At the end of each leg is a pad surrounded by a pair of claws. The pad is covered with tiny, sticky hairs that make it possible for an insect to walk on walls, to walk upside down, and to walk on many smooth surfaces. The claws can be used to hook on to rougher surfaces.
Also on the thorax of adult insects are 2 pairs of wings. The 2nd and 3rd segments of the thorax each contain a pair of wings. Each wing has a network of hollow tubes called veins which are covered by a thin skin. They are joined to the segments by a hinge so that they can flap. Some insects have smooth, transparent wings (like dragonflies). The wings of butterflies and moths are covered with many tiny scales. Other insects have wings covered with hairs.

Abdomen

The abdomen is usually the largest part of an insect's body. This is the part of the insect that contains the organs for digesting food and the reproductive organs. The abdomen of insects is made up up 9 to 11 ring-shaped segments which make the abdomen flexible.

All parts of an insect's body are covered with an exoskeleton that is made up of a tough substance called chitin. Sometimes this exoskeleton is called a cuticle.

Most insects also have special holes called spiracles in their thorax or abdomen that they use to breathe. They don't take air in through their mouths, but instead air is sucked up through their spiracles that lead to a system of air tubes that branch out throughout the insect's body.

Insects don't have veins and arteries to carry their blood. The blood simply surrounds the organs inside their bodies. An insect's heart is a long tube that runs along its back. It keeps the insect's blood moving around its body. Insect blood is usually clear, greenish, or yellowish.

Come and sample some of the following websites to learn more about the fascinating world of insects.

Youth Entomological Society : Understanding Arthro

Insects are arthropods. All arthropods have jointed legs and an exoskeleton. Spiders, ticks, crabs, shrimps, and lobsters--as well as insects--are all arthropods. However, insects belong to their own subclass: insecta. Spiders and ticks belong to the arachnid class of arthropods. Shrimps, lobsters, and crabs belong to the crustacean class of arthropods.

The system of animal classification is compared to what other system at this site?

Chironomidae and Water Beetles of Florida

Metamorphosis refers to the life cycle of insects and how they change from egg to larva to pupa and finally to an adult form. A caterpillar is the pupal form of a butterfly or moth.

List 3 reasons why insect identification is difficult.

Minibeast Profiles: Incredible Insects!

Earwigs DO NOT get in people's ears! They feed on dead plants and animals.

List the ways in which insects are beneficial to humans.
List the ways that they can be harmful to humans.

Dead Bugs in Amber

In the movie, Jurassic Park , when they got that dinosaur blood out of the mosquito in the hunk of amber, that mosquito must have been a female. Only female mosquitoes eat blood. They need the protein to develop eggs. Male mosquitoes feed on plant nectar.

Jurassic Park--Remember that the character named John Hammond got the DNA to make dinosaurs from mosquitoes that were found in ancient amber. Check out the pictures on this page that show insects in amber. List the 4 insects shown.
This page has a variety of insect information. Scroll down to the chart that shows each state's official insect. Utah's state insect is, of course, the honeybee. What other states have the honeybee as their official insect, too?

University of Florida Book of Insect Records

A grasshopper can jump more than 20 times its own length. This would be the same as a human being completing a broadjump of about 80 feet which is about the length of a basketball court!

Find the following information about insects:
- The fastest flier
- The fastest wing beat
- The least specific sucker of vertebrate blood
- The longest migration
- The most toxic venom
- The largest swarm
- The heaviest
- The shortest reproductive life

Gypsy Moths

The Queen Alexandra birdwing butterfly is sometimes mistaken for a bird because its winspan to more than 11 inches.

Gypsy moths are a real worry in Utah and other areas of the US because of the damage that they do. How would you know if you had one of these destructive moths in your yard? Describe what they look like.

Ladybird Beetles

The exoskeletons of insects prevent them from growing. Our skeletons grow along with us. This doesn't work for insects because their skeletons are on the outside. So in order to get bigger, insects must molt which means they shed their hard outer skeletons. Insects molt from 3 to 20 times in their lives. Underneath the old exoskeleton is a new, soft skin that allows the insect's body to expand. It has a new exoskeleton, but right after an insect molts, this exoskeleton is soft and expandable.

Why are ladybugs such swell insects?

Assassin Bug

Assassin bugs are beneficial to humans because they eat lots of other bugs. They kill them by stabbing them with a sharp stylet (mouthpart), injecting them with a paralyzing saliva that turns their insides to liquid, and then sucking their insides out�hence their name--assassin.

You are creating a new comic book called Adventures of Assassin Bug. However, he does not go around assassinating anything. His mission in life is to SAVE his fellow insects. Draw your main character. Write a short adventure where he saves a ladybug or a butterfly from some terrible fate. Draw a storyboard of illustrations for your adventure.

Introduction to Insects

When is a bug REALLY a bug?

Are all insects bugs?
What are true bugs and what are their characteristics?
Is a ladybug a bug?

Minibeast Profiles: Lacewings, Dobsonflies, and An

Grasshoppers chirp by rubbing their back legs against their wings. They have a row of bumps on each back leg that make the chirping sound. It's kind of like running your fingernail over the teeth of a comb.

What other name does an antlion have?
How does the larval stage of an antlion catch its food?
Which parts of its food does it eat and what does it do with the leftovers?

Lacewings

Termites live everywhere in the world except the North and South Pole.

How do you think this insect's appearance benefits it?

The Amazing Animals Quiz

Bedbugs live in cracks in furniture, under floorboards, under old wallpaper, etc. They come out at night to feed on sleeping people! They crawl into bed to bite and feed on blood.

Even though this is called an animal quiz, it is about insects. You'll need to write the answers on a separate piece of paper. The answers are listed at the bottom of the webpage. Don't look.

Pioneer: Utah's Online Library

Newspapers are now online as well as on your front porch.

Go to the Pioneer : Utah's Online Library and select either the Salt Lake Tribune or the Deseret News. Find some insect information. From either source, choose their archives which are prior issues of the newspapers. Use "insect" as your search term and find articles about bugs. Choose one article of your choice and write a brief summary.

Teacher Resources

SURWEB is a great resource for teachers. It is a tool (developed in Utah!) that allows teachers and students to make their own multimedia presentations. SURWEB has a database of over 12,000 photographs that can be used to make slide shows. You can view public slide shows that others have already been created or make your own. As it relates to insects, there are many photos of Utah insects that can be used in classrooms. Check out the Butterflies of Utah page that lists the butterfly photos that your or your students can use to make presentations. At the bottom of that page is a list of media shows that have already been made with the images. Native Utah Insects and Insects of Utah list photos of other Utah insects that you can use. Spend some time and check out the other resources of SURWEB. It is a wonderful source for content, particularly for 4th and 7th grade teachers, as well as a useful tool for making presentations.

Bugscope is a program from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It's an educational outreach project of the World Wide Laboratory, and its goal is to demonstrate that relatively low cost, sustainable access to a scanning electron microscope can be made available to K-12 classrooms. Teachers can sign up to participate or observe the participation of other classrooms.

The Journey North (South) is an incredible (and fun and easy) way for students to be engaged in a global study of wildlife migration and seasonal change. The journeys of a dozen migratory species are tracked each spring. "Students share their own field observations with classrooms across the Hemisphere. In addition, students are linked with scientists who provide their expertise directly to the classroom. Several migrations are tracked by satellite telemetry, providing live coverage of individual animals as they migrate. As the spring season sweeps across the Hemisphere, students note changes in daylight, temperatures, & all living things as the food chain comes back to life."

Classrooms simply sign up to belong to the Journey North email-based mailing list. As it relates to insects, if students observe monarch butterfly movement in their area, they post that information to the mailing list. Classrooms don't even have to post their own information to benefit from this project. Just reading the email postings from other areas of the world is fascinating. Or if email access is a problem, classrooms can read a digest of each day's news directly from the Journey North page. There are teacher tips on how other classrooms are integrating Journey North into their curriculum, classroom lesson plans, and a teacher discussion page. Tracking the migration of certain species of whales is a particularly interesting part of this project as well as different kinds of birds. Don't miss the "Signs of Spring" portion of this project. Your class can plant tulip bulbs in the fall and track their growth in the spring with other classrooms in the U.S. This is an easy way to particpate in an internet project and is such an engaged, interesting, and fun way for students to begin to grasp the the global nature of the internet as well as feel connected to students around the world. Journey North is educational internet at its best.

Life in a Pine Cone At this site you will find an insect activity for student use in collaborative groups. It is geared to junior high students. Students collect pinecones and examine them as microhabitats. Students are asked to record the number and kinds of insects found living in their pinecones. A datasheet is included for students to record their results. This project could possibly be adapted to other microhabitats such as "Life Under a Rock". If you turn over a rock in your yard or in a field or in the mountains, etc., you will discover many other insects to investigate.

Jon's Pet Arachnids and Insects has online classifieds where you can purchase insects for classroom activities. It also has a link to an online auction (like Ebay--only it's just for bugs). You'll also find caresheets for common spider and insect pets.

Bibliography

Hunt, Joni. Insects. Silver Burdett Press: New Jersey, 1995.
Mound, Laurence. Eyewitness Books : Insect. Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1990.
Russo, Monica. The Insect Almanac : A Year-Round Activity Guide. Sterling Publishing: New York, 1991.
Snedden, Robert. What Is An Insect? Sierra Club Books for Children: San Francisco, 1992.
Tesar, Jenny. Insect. Blackbirch Press: Woodbridge, Connecticut, 1993.

Author: LINDA MOSBACKER - Email linda.mosbacker@slc.k12.ut.us