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| The Kingdom of Insects |
All different types of animals, insects are the largest in number with over a million different types known to man which have inhabited Earth for more than 500 million years. They can be divided into 20 different families, i.e., fleas, dragonflies, grasshoppers, moths, leaf insects, bugs, mantises, flies and mosquitoes, cockroaches, termites, scorpionflies, lice, thrips, beetles, bees and wasps, earwigs, etc. They vary in size with the bigger ones weighting upto 100 gms and the smallest invisible to the human eye.
Insects are invertebrates with ‘exoskeletons’ or hard shells on their bodies which cover various organs like a brain, heart, eyes, trachen, rectum etc.
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Most insects breath through small holes gidden under folds of the exoskeleton and feed on practically anything depends upon the structure of their mouth since some insects have mouths which are only capable of sucking while others can bite. Most insects have wings and are capable of flying. Insects undergo immense transformations as they grow this is called ‘Metamorphosis’, a good example of this is the turning of a caterpillar into a butterfly, another example is of a Damselfly which is hatched under water as a nymph, it lives there for some time, emerges out of the water with internally developed wings, sheds its skin and flies away as a Damselfly.
The other astounding thing about insects is that they have copounded vison i.e. they have eyes which give them all round vision because they are made of small lens like units which may be as many as 25,000 in an eyeball. Most insects have hair like extension from the top of their heads called ‘Antennae’, these act as organs of sence for the insect and help it in detecting vibrations in solid objects and air. Insects pollinate flowers and are also useful to man, remember we would not have honey if it was not for the bees.
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