Do you know your bugs??

I thought I’d share just an introduction to the study of insects with y’all.  This is for both the entomology and etymology nerds out there!

First.  Insects are Animals.  (Yep.  Kingdom Animalia)

Second, insects are Arthropods—cousins of crabs and crayfish, millipedes and spiders. (Phylum Arthropoda= “Jointed legs”)

Third, insects are part of the Subphylum Hexapoda (“six-legs”)

Finally, insects make up the Class Insecta. 

Within the insect class, there are 27 orders, though this is sometimes disputed and changes all the time… silly taxonomists (no, not taxidermists…)  

As of now, these are the orders I know:

Hymenoptera (“membrane” “wing”)—Bees, ants, wasps

Lepidoptera (“scaly” “wing”)—Moths & butterflies

Orthoptera (“straight” “wing”)—Grasshoppers, crickets, katydids

Odonata (“odonto”= tooth and “wing”)—Dragonflies and damselflies, which are pretty tough predators with teeth on their mandibles

Ephemeroptera (“ephemera”= for a short time and “wing”) –Mayflies (which live only one day as adults)

Hemiptera (“Half” “wing”)—True bugs, cicadas, leaf-hoppers, aphids—the original members of this order had wings that were half membranous and half tough

Coleoptera (“Sheath” “wing”)- Beetles, which have hard outer wings called elytra

Dermaptera (“skin” “wing”)—Earwigs, which have a thick protective outer wing

Blattodea (“blatta” = Greek for cockroach)—Cockroaches and Termites

Thysanoptera (“tassel/fringe” “wing”)—Thrips, which have cool, feathery wings

Plecoptera (“folded wing”)—Stoneflies, which have pleated hind wings that fold under the forewings at rest

Neuroptera (“neuron” “wing”)- Lacewings, which have amazingly complex wing venation

Mecoptera (“long” “wing”) Scorpian flies—They also have long heads and some have long scorpian-like tails

Psocoptera (“rubbed or gnawed” “wing”)- Book lice and bark lice—yep, they gnaw on things like wood and paper

Diptera (“two” “wing”)- True flies, which have only 2 wings compared to all the other insects with four wings or no wings

Phthiraptera (“lice” “wingless”)—Parasitic/biting lice

Siphonaptera (“tube” “wingless”)-Fleas

Thysanura (“tassel/fringe” “tail”)-Silverfish, which have long filaments as tails

Mantodea (“mantis” = Greek word for mantids)- Mantids

Phasmatodea (“phasm” = “phantom”)—Walking sticks, leaf insects, etc., which are very cryptic in their appearance and behaviors

Raphidioptera (“needle” “wing”)—Snakeflies

Trichoptera (“hair” “wing”)—Caddisflies

Megaloptera (“large” “wing”)—Alderflies and dobsonflies

There are a few other lesser-known orders that I don’t know much about:

Grylloblattodea = insects found in cold, icy places

Embiidina= webspinners

Zoraptera= tiny, termite-like things found in decaying wood

Strepsiptera= twisted wing parasites

Snakefly, Order Raphidioptera.
Collected this summer on a hike up Flagstaff Mountain in Libby.

Order Lepidoptera.
From Butterfly Wonderland, a magical place in Scottsdale, AZ.  I took students there for my flight intensive in January 2014.  We were all mesmerized.

Bumble bees and Bald-faced Hornets, Order Hymenoptera.
Some of the first insects I collected this summer in Libby.

E.O. Wilson said,

"If you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all."

Howard Ensign Evans said,"Discovery is one of the greatest joys, and it is still there to be had in abundance. Discovery may be on several planes. It may be personal, one's discovery of a fact of nature previously unknown to him. It may be practical, a new way of putting information to use in some human discipline. It may be universal, a fact new to science... Since insects constitute the major class of our coinhabitants of planet earth, it is good to become better acquainted with them. They provide a very rich source indeed of the joys that accompany discovery."