Life
of Bugs - Trivia
1.
The creeps shall inherit the earth
95% of all known species are insects. With 1 million already named
and classified, scientists believe there may yet be another 4
million to be discovered.
2.
Voyage of the Beetle
Charles Darwin, author of ‘The Origin of Species’, and the founding
father of modern genetics, was a lifelong collector of beetles.
Apparently, his cousin William, an Entomologist, inspired him.
3.
Book worm
It would take 6,000 encyclopaedia pages just to list the names
of all known insects. (See Links
for details).
4.
More and more Beetles
1 in every 4 animals on this planet is a beetle. See Links
for details).
5.
Definitions
‘An insect is an air breathing animal with a hard-jointed exoskeleton,
and in the adult a body divided into three parts, the head with
one pair of antennae, the thorax which carries three pairs of legs
and usually two pairs of wings, and the abdomen which contains the
gut and reproductive organs’. (Source ‘Insect World’).
6.
Those insect ‘orders’ in full
There are 14 insect groupings, technically known as ‘orders’,
and here they are:
Hymenoptera
- ants, Bees & Wasps
Diptera - Flies
Neuroptera - Lacewings & antlions
Hemiptera - True Bugs
Mantodea - Mantids
Ephemeroptera
Mayflies Lepidoptera - Butterflies & Moths Homoptera - Cicada
Hoppers & aphids
Cloeoptera - Beetles
Orthoptera - Grasshoppers & Crickets
Blattaria - Cockroaches
Phasmida - Walking Sticks
Odonata - Dragonflies & Damselflies
Arthropoda
7.
Some genuine moth nomenclatures
(that’s names to you and me):
Pretty Chalk Carpet, Lime-Speck Pug, Chimney Sweep, Glanvile’s
Orange Girdled, Tilman Bobart’s Straw, Donkey Dobin Hecklespeck
Winner, and Scarce Marvel da Jour. You just couldn’t make them
up, could you?
8.
Count them and weep - part 1
The entomology department at the National Museum & Galleries of
Wales has an insect collection comprised of around 700,000 specimens.
(See Links for details).
9.
Count them and weep - part 2
The Natural History Museum in London holds over 27 MILLION specimens
in its collection! (See Links
for details).
10.
The bees knees
30% of all human food is directly or indirectly dependent on bee
pollination. (See Z is for Zzzzz
for more top bee facts).
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