Have you ever wondered why insects are called insects and not six-legged or bipedal? Let's try to understand from the very beginning why insects are so called. Grade 3 in a biology class at a school takes this topic, and we’ll try to remember.
What are insects?
Imagine this is the largest group by the number of species of all that live on Earth. Due to its relatively small size and multiplicity, this is one of the most unexplored groups of inhabitants of the earth's land, so no one can accurately name their exact number (maybe a million, two).
Insects
are also the ancient and mysterious inhabitants of our green planet (in enlarged copies you can find characters of science fiction films or thrillers). Unfortunately, it is impossible to ask their oldest contemporaries why insects are so called.External features
Perhaps the question of why insects are called insects can be answered by studying their appearance:
- six limbs (legs or feet) of small sizes from three millimeters to two centimeters (the exception are some types of dragonflies, the wingspan of which can reach 30 centimeters);
- wings (almost all adults have them);
- head cut off from the chest;
- small size (nature did not reward insects with impressive dimensions, so that they could better resist the gravity and pressure of air masses);
- notches.
Now guessed why insects are called insects? Yes! Thanks to special notches on the body. Notch, notch, notch, insect.
Main food
A real traveler-researcher will not stop halfway, having received an answer exclusively to his question (why insects are called insects), but will continue research until he exhausts the topic to the last drop.
The main source of nutrition for insects is the ground and underground parts of plants: pollen, nectar, stems, leaves, juice of fresh and rotten fruits and berries, seeds, bark, wood, roots. Because of this, many gardeners, gardeners, gardeners and farmers consider them the main enemies of the struggle for the crop.
In addition, among them there is a fairly large number of bloodsucking: horseflies, mosquitoes, midges, ticks, biting midges, gadflies, deer flies, bed bugs, lice, fleas and others.
Breeding
Cockroaches, aphids, bedbugs, crickets, grasshoppers, lice, dragonflies, and mantises breed eggs, from which wingless babies that look like parents hatch. They eat the same food as adults. In addition, their habitat is practically no different from the one in which the rest live. This type of development is called incomplete transformation.
Mosquitoes, flies, butterflies, bees, beetles and ants from eggs first appear larva, from it - a pupa, from which an adult insect grows. This is the so-called complete transformation. The larvae of such insects often live in a different habitat and eat food other than what adults eat.
The manifestation of hereditary instincts is interesting: newly hatched insects can escape enemies and escape from them, they can dig complex burrows and moves, they are able to independently search for and earn their own food.
Role in nature and human life
The value of insects in nature and human life is diverse.
Positive role:
- pollinating flowering plants;
- destroy rotting plants, their rotten parts;
- exterminate other harmful insects (pests of agricultural land);
- produce honey and components of certain medicines, as well as silk;
- are food for humans and certain species of animals and birds.
Negative:
- are a carrier of dangerous infections: malaria, encephalitis, typhoid fever;
- destroy crops and crops of fruits and vegetables;
- bother a person.
However, insects are harmoniously included in the ecosystem. Without them, life on Earth would not be the same.