 How Many Insect Species Exist?
We have compiled a lot of different insect facts and interesting information into some of the most frequently asked questions (FAQS) about insects that you will find anywhere! There are many more kinds of insects on earth than there are of any other kind of living creature! Insects have the greatest number of individuals living of at any one time. It is estimated that there are approximately 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) individual insects alive. There are 1,017,018 species of insects in the world with some experts estimating that there just might be as many as 10 million species out there. That means you could spend your whole life looking at different kinds of insects and you'll never be able to see them all. It's hard to imagine, but 95% of all the animal species on the earth are insects! There are so many insects with different insect characteristics we had to limit our insect facts to the top 100 most interesting insect facts . To give you an idea just how many insects there are consider that on average there are millions of insects living on every single acre of land! Over one million species have been discovered by scientists and entomologists as they think there might be more than ten times as many insects than we currently know about which haven't even been named yet!
 Insect Orders, Families, and Species
Insects are arthropods (a type of invertebrate, animals that lack a backbone). These insect creatures are divided up into 32 orders, or groups. The largest insect order is the beetles (Coleoptera) with 125 different families and around 500,000 different species. In fact, one out of every four animals on earth is some type of beetle bug.
Insects in Terms of Biomass Returns Surprising Results
Scientists estimate that 10% of the animal biomass of the world is composed of ants, and another 10% of termites. This means that 'social insects' could possibly make up an incredible 20% of the total animal biomass on this planet! There isn't anywhere on land where you can go and not find insects. Even on the frozen extremes of the Arctic and Antarctica you can find insects  alive and active during the warmer months. Insects are ubiquitous, they are in the soil beneath your feet, in the air above your head, on and in the bodies plants and animals around you, as well as on and in you. They are incredibly adaptable creatures and have evolved to live successfully in most environments existing on earth. The only place where insects are not commonly found is in the oceans. Insects eat more plants than all other creatures on earth combined! They are also tremendously important in the breakdown of plant and animal matter. Without them, we would have a world covered in dead plants and animals! In addition to all of this insects are a major food source for a wide range of animal species.
Common Characteristics of Insects
 Insects have an amazing number of differences to their size, shape, and behavior, but they all have 4 characteristics in common: they have three body parts - a head, thorax, abdomen, and they must have six jointed legs and two antennae to sense the world around them from inside their exoskeleton (outside skeleton). Entomologists believe that insects are successful because of their protective shell (exoskeleton), they are small, and most of them can fly. Insects with their small size and ability to fly helps them to escape from enemies and travel to  new environments. Because they are so small they need only need small amounts of food and can live in very small cracks and spaces. Insects are an extremely diverse type of animal. They are cold-blooded, so the rate at which they grow and develop depends on the temperature of their environment. Insects typically pass through four distinct life stages: egg, larva or nymph, pupa, and adult. Eggs are laid singly or in masses, in or on plant tissue or another insect. There are two general types of insect metamorphosis: simple metamorphosis and complete metamorphosis. In a complete metamorphosis the wings develop internally during the larval stages. The larval stages look quite different from the adult. Between the last larval stage and the adult stage there is a pupal stage which usually is inactive. In simple metamorphosis the wings develop externally during the larval stages. The larval stages, which are called nymphs, look very similar to the adult insect. There is no pupal stage. |
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