What is the concept of insects?

Insects are one of the largest groups in the animal kingdom, and they occupy a very important position in biodiversity, both in terms of the number of individuals, the number of organisms, and the number of species and genes. The relationship between insects and human beings is complex and close, some insects have caused serious disasters to human beings, and some species have provided rich resources to human beings.

Insecta is the largest of the animal kingdom. In Chinese, one of the meanings of "Kun" is "many", "huge"; and the scope of the word "insect" is very wide. In 1890, Fang Xu in the book "Bug Aloe" put "feather, hair, insects, scales, medium" in the five categories of animals.

In Western languages, "insect" (entoma and insect, the former from the Greek, the latter from the Latin) included a wide range of the earliest. 1602, U. Aldrovandi wrote the "De animalibus" (De animalibus) in the "insectis". In 1602, U. Aldrovandi's De animalibus (insectis) included arthropods, annelids, echinoderms, and so on; in 1758, Carl von Linne (or Carolus Linnaeus) named in the 10th edition of his magnum opus Systema naturae

Insecta includes arachnids, arachnopods, and other arthropods. 1825, P.A. Latreille established the hexapod Hexapoda, which standardized the term "insect" as a six-legged arthropod with a head, thorax, and abdomen.

Insecta

Insecta is not only the largest group of arthropods, but also the largest group in the animal kingdom. There are more than 1.5 million known species of animals in the world, of which more than 1 million species (i.e., 2/3) are insects. The number of known species of plants (including bacteria) is about 335,000, which is only 1/3 of the number of insect species.It is difficult to know the exact number of species of insects because taxonomists are still describing new species, e.g., according to the Imms, the number of Lepidoptera (moths, butterflies) was 80,000 in 1931, increased to 100,000 in 1934, and reached 140,000 in 1942.The number of species in the Lepidoptera (moths, butterflies) is about 1.5 million, which is the highest among the Arthropoda. The largest order of insects is the Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). The largest order in the Insecta is Coleoptera, with more than 250,000 species, and the weevil family is as large as 60,000 species.

Not only are there many species of insects, but the number of individuals of the same species is also very impressive. An ant group can be as many as 500,000 individuals. It has been estimated that the entire ant population may exceed the total number of all other insects. The wheat sucker has as many as 25,920,000 individuals on an acre of land in the years of the great wheat sucker infestation. A single tree may possess into 100,000 individuals of aphids. In broadleaf forests there can be 100,000 elasmobranchs per square meter of soil.

The wide distribution of insects, no other class of animals can be compared, almost the entire planet. From the equator to the poles, from the ocean, rivers to the desert, as high as the roof of the world - Mount Everest, down to a few meters deep in the soil, there are insects. Such a wide distribution shows the amazing adaptability of insects and the ecological basis for their great variety.

Reasons for the prosperity of the Insecta

First, insects are the only winged group of invertebrates. Flight gives insects a great advantage in all aspects of feeding, courtship, avoiding enemies and expanding their distribution.

Second, insects are generally small. The small body only needs a very small amount of food to complete development. For example, a cabbage leaf can be used for thousands of aphids, a grain of rice can be used for a few rice elephants to survive. It is also due to the small size of the body, can make the food become its hiding place, thus gaining the benefits of moisturizing and avoiding enemies.

Third, the differentiation of the type of insect mouthparts, especially from eating solid food to eating liquid food, greatly expanded the range of food and improved the relationship with the host - in general, the host will not die because of the loss of some of the sap, and will not, in turn, then affect the survival of the insect.

Fourth, insects have an amazing reproductive capacity. This is associated with small body development (that is, in a unit of time, can complete a larger number of generations), has become an important condition of insects with a very high rate of reproduction. Thus, in the changing environment, the natural enemies of the natural situation, even if the natural mortality rate reaches more than 90%, insects can maintain it a certain level of population size.

In tracing the origins of insects, the most ancient insect fossils have been found, found within Middle Devonian rocks. In other words, insects have been on Earth for at least 350 million years. Humans, on the other hand, appeared in the Tertiary period, only one million years ago. So, before humans appeared, insects and all the plants and animals in the environment they inhabited had already established a long historical relationship.

Insects have become the most prosperous animal groups of reasons

1. winged can fly

Insects are the only invertebrates have wings in a class, but also the earliest of the animals with wings of a group, the ability to fly to the insects in the search for food, courtship, to avoid the enemy, the diffusion of the great benefits;

2. strong reproduction

The insects have amazing reproductive capacity. Insects have an amazing ability to reproduce. Most insects lay hundreds of eggs in the range of insects with social and lone female reproduction is even stronger, if necessary, a honeybee queen can lay millions of eggs in a lifetime, some people have estimated that a lone female reproducing aphids, if all the progeny survive and continue to reproduce, half a year after the total number of aphids up to 600 million or so.

3. Advantages of small size

Most of the insects are small in size, not only a small amount of food to meet the nutritional needs of its growth and reproduction, but also in the survival space, flexibility, avoidance of enemies, to reduce the damage, and downwind migratory flight has a lot of advantages

4. Diversification of the organs of food

Different groups of insects have different types of food organs

Different groups of insects have different types of food organs. Different groups of insects have different types of mouthparts, on the one hand, to avoid competition for food, and at the same time partially improve the relationship between insects and feeding objects;

5. Metamorphosis and developmental stages

The vast majority of insects for the metamorphosis of most of the species of the juvenile and adult individuals in the habitat and food habits are very different, which avoids the same species or the same type of insects in the space and food and other conflicting needs;

The majority of insects for the metamorphosis of most species in the juvenile and adult individuals in the habitat and food habits are very different.

6. Strong adaptability

From the wide distribution of insects, the number of species, the number of large, long continuation of the history of the characteristics we can deduce that its adaptive capacity is strong, whether it is on the temperature, starvation, drought, pharmaceuticals and other insects have a strong adaptability, and the life cycle of the insect is shorter, it is easier to put the mutation of the population is beneficial to the preservation. For periodic or long-term adverse environmental conditions, insects can also be dormant or stagnant, some species can be stagnant in the soil species for several years, more than ten years or longer to maintain the continuation of their populations.

Naming of organisms and type specimens

Scientists have given every organism they have studied and not documented a Latin name, including the genus name and species name of the two Latin words, known as binomial nomenclature, which was pioneered by the Swedish scientist Linnaeus in 1758. The specimen on which the name is based is called the type specimen, of which one is designated as the orthomode and the rest as the paromode.

Relationship between Insects and Humans

Since there are people on the earth, because people want to get the means of living from nature, to transform nature, there is bound to be a problem of competition with insects for resources; but on the other hand, insects also provide resources for human beings. Thus, people also have a close relationship with insects.

The relationship between insects and human beings is very complex, and one of the main factors constituting the complex relationship is the unusually wide range of insect food. According to previous estimates, 48.2% of insects are phytophagous; 28% are predatory, prey on other insects and small animals; 2.4% are parasitic, parasitic in other insects and animals outside the body and in the body: there are 17.3% of the food spoilage of biological organisms and animal feces. This gives us a rough outline of the benefits and harms of insects. But this is only a natural phenomenon, whereas the human view of benefits and harms is much more complex, as it is based on the view of economic benefits to the human being. The following is a discussion of the harmful and beneficial aspects of insects to humans.

How to recognize insects?

When it comes to insects, we may already be familiar with them. Colorful butterflies, visit the flowers of honey bees, spitting silk cocoons of silkworms, singing the song of the robin, fighting crickets, starlight flashes of fireflies, athletic, aircraft-like dragonflies, naive and cute little ladybugs, holding a pair of large knives, the angry eyes of the praying mantis, the annoying flies, mosquitoes, cockroaches, and so on. So what else are insects? Are spiders that spit silk and scorpions that sting insects? What about marrows and centipedes? To these questions, you may not always be able to answer completely, now let's take a look at what kind of bugs are considered insects?

Insects, like other organisms, have their own special classification position. It is in the animal kingdom belongs to the order of insects in the phylum Arthropoda. Its main features are as follows (after the colorful Wanzhi diagram):

(1) the body segments are assembled into three segments: head, thorax, and abdomen, but they are not divided

(2) the head is the center of sensation and feeding, and it has the mouthparts and a pair of antennae, as well as usually compound eyes and a single eye;

(3) the thorax is the center of locomotion, and it has three pairs of legs, as well as two pairs of wings;

(4) the abdomen is the center of movement, with three pairs of legs, and usually two pairs of wings;

(5) the abdomen is the center of the body. p> (4) The abdomen is the center of reproduction and metabolism, which contains the genitals and most of the internal organs;

(5) Insects undergo a series of internal and external morphological changes during growth and development before they can transform into adults. This change in body form is called metamorphosis.

(6) Insects that chirp are males, females do not chirp

Therefore, the basic characteristics of insects can be summarized as follows: "three segments of the carapace head, thorax, abdomen, two pairs of wings and six legs; a pair of antennae born on the head, the skeleton wrapped in the outside of the body; the form of life is more varied, all over the world, Wang family."

With the concept of insects, you now know the answer to the previous question: spiders, scorpions, the body is divided into two segments of the head thorax and abdomen, but also grow 8 legs, so it is not an insect. Centipedes, marrows have even more legs, almost every link (body segments) on 1 to 2 pairs of legs, of course, even more is not an insect.

Biggest and Smallest Insects

In terms of weight, the heaviest insect in the world is the giant rhinoceros tortoise (Coleoptera: Rhinocerosidae) of tropical America. This rhinoceros beetle is 155 millimeters long from the head protrusion to the end of the abdomen, and its body is 100 millimeters wide, making it larger than the largest goose egg. Its weight is about 100 grams, equivalent to the weight of two eggs. In addition, a Brazilian species of aspidistra (Coleoptera aspidistra) is also more than 150 millimeters long. But in terms of body length, the longest insect is living in the Malay Peninsula, a bamboo worm, its body length of 270 millimeters, longer than a pencil.

The world's smallest and lightest insect is a kind of egg wasp Alaptus magnonimus Annandale of Hymenoptera tasseled wasp family Mymaridae, with a body length of only 0.21 millimeters, and its weight is also extremely light, only 0.005 milligrams. Converted, 200,000 of them are only 1 gram, and 10 million weigh as much as an egg.

How many species of insects are there in the world?

Recent research suggests that there may be 10 million species of insects in the world, about half of all living species on Earth. However, there are only 1 million species of insects, accounting for 2/3-3/4 of the known species in the animal kingdom. 90% of the world's insects are still unknown to us; according to the most conservative estimate, there are at least 3 million species of insects in the world, and there are still 2 million species of insects to be discovered, described, and named. There are now about 1000 new species of insects published each year in the world, which are included in the Zoological record, so the journal is a must-have search tool for researchers engaged in animal classification.

Among the named insects, the Coleoptera (beetles) alone number 350,000 species, of which the family Elephantidae is the largest, including more than 60,000 species, 10 times more than mammals. Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) are the next largest, with about 200,000 species. Hymenoptera (bees and ants) and Diptera (mosquitoes and flies) are both around 150,000 species.

Not only are there many species of insects, but there are also a large number of individuals of the same species, some of which are incredibly large. A colony of ants can have as many as 500,000 individuals. A tree can have 100,000 individual aphids. In forests, there can be 100,000 heads of elasmobranchs per square meter. When locusts occur in large numbers, the number of individuals can reach as many as 7 to 1.2 billion, with a total weight of about 1,250 to 3,000 tons, and the swarms can cover an area of 500 to 1,200 hectares, which can be said to cover the sky and the sun.

How many species of insects are known in China?

China, with its vast territory and complex natural conditions, is the only country in the world that straddles two major zoogeographic regions, and thus is one of the countries with the largest number of insect species in the world. Generally speaking, China's insect species accounted for 1/10 of the world's species. 1 million species of insects have been named in the world, China's name should be in the 100,000 kinds of insects, but at present, China has found that the name of the insect is only more than 50,000 kinds of insects, to catch up with the world's current level is still a long way to go. Moreover, the world's insect species should be in the 3~10 million species, so our country should have 30~1 million species of insects. From this we can see that there are still too many new species of insects in our country waiting for our friends who are interested in studying insects to discover, name and describe them.

Where do insects live?

There are so many species of insects, so their ways and places of life are bound to be diverse, and some of them are very valuable to study in terms of how they live and how their life instincts are expressed. It can be said that there are insects everywhere from the end of the earth to the corner of the sea, from the mountains to the abyss, from the equator to the poles, from the sea, rivers to the desert, from the meadow to the forest, from the field to the indoor, from the sky to the soil. However, to be distinguished by the most suitable places for the activities of the main insect forms, they can be roughly divided into five categories.

(1) insects living in the air: most of these insects are active during the day, the adult stage with well-developed wings, usually with well-developed mouthparts, adult life is relatively long. Such as bees, hornets, dragonflies, flies, mosquitoes, gadflies, butterflies and so on. Insects in the air activity stage is mainly for migration and diffusion, searching for food, marriage and courtship and choose the place to lay eggs.

(2) insects living on the surface: these insects have no wings, or have wings but are not good at flying, or can only crawl and jump. Some good flying insects, their larval and pupal stages are also living on the ground. Some parasitic insects and those that feed exclusively on decaying plants and animals (including those that live indoors with humans***) also spend most of their time on the surface. Surface-dwelling insects make up the vast majority of all insect species because the ground is the location of insect food and habitat. Common insects in this category include walking insects (fart bugs) and cockroaches.

(3) Insects living in the soil: These insects feed on plant roots and humus in the soil. They are a major pest in agriculture, fruit trees and seedlings due to their activities in the soil and their gnawing on plant roots. These insects are most afraid of light, most species of activities and migration ability is relatively poor, daytime seldom drill to the ground activities, night and rainy days is their most suitable time for activities. These insects are common mole crickets, tigers (larvae of moths), cicada larvae and so on.

(4) insects living in the water: some insects live in the water all their lives, such as the negative bugs of Hemiptera, field turtles, turtle bugs, rowing bugs, etc., Coleoptera's dragon lice, water turtle bugs and so on. Some insects are only larvae (specially called them larvae) living in water, such as dragonflies, stone moths, mayflies and so on. Aquatic insects **** the same characteristics are: the body side of the valve degeneration, and located at the ends of the body valve developed or special tracheal gills instead of valve respiration; most species have a flat and hairy swimming feet, play the role of paddling.

(5) parasitic insects: the body size of these insects is relatively small, poor mobility, most species of larvae have no feet or feet are no longer able to walk, the vision of the eyes is also weakened. Some parasitic insects spend their entire lives on the body surface of mammals and rely on blood-sucking to survive, such as fleas and lice. Some parasitize the body of animals, such as the horse stomach fly. Other insects parasitize other insects, which are beneficial to humans and can be used to control pests, called biological control. These insects are mainly small wasps, gypsy wasps, cocoon wasps, parasitic flies and so on. Among parasitic insects, there is also a phenomenon called reparasitism. It is when a parasitic wasp or parasitic fly parasitizes a phytophagous insect and then another parasitic insect re-parasitizes the former parasitic insect. Some species can also engage in dual, or triple parasitism. These phenomena are simply an instinct for insects to compete for survival.

Eating insects

Mentioning insects, people think of ants, crickets, dragonflies, grasshoppers, cicadas, caterpillars, and other kinds of oddly shaped critters. These small animals to catch to play, ornamental is not bad, but to eat as food into the belly, there may be many people feel unimaginable, may also be nausea and vomiting. In fact, insects as human food Eat a long history, many countries and regions of the world, have the habit of eating insects. According to incomplete statistics, there are dozens of insects eaten as food in various parts of China.

Insects are not only rich in organic substances, such as protein, fat, carbohydrates, inorganic substances such as various salts, potassium, sodium, phosphorus, iron, calcium content is also very rich, as well as free amino acids needed by the human body. According to the data analysis, every 100 milliliters of human plasma contains 24.4 - 34.4 mg of free amino acids, much higher than the free amino acid content of human plasma. Insects in the body of the protein content is also extremely high, roasted cicada contains 72% of the protein, wasps contain 81% of the protein, termites in the body of the protein than beef is also high, 100 grams of termites can produce 500 calories, 100 grams of cattle net can only produce 30 calories.

In addition to the above advantages of insects as food, there are short generations, fast reproduction, easy to obtain and other characteristics. Thus, in the wild distress, insects are often the first choice of food for those in distress, the author himself has eaten more than ten kinds in the wild, feel the flavor is not bad. In order to make outdoor activities enthusiasts have some understanding of edible insects, the author here lists China's wild easier to obtain, the taste is still good edible insects, capture and consumption methods, for the "brave" who intend to eat insects for reference. Insects marked with an "*" after their names are preferred for consumption. When eating insects, you can choose to roast, grill, stir-fry, boil, deep-fry and other different methods of consumption according to your own conditions at the time.

Locusts Eat their adults or larvae, all kinds of locusts including grasshoppers can be eaten. Use branches with leaves to beat them, or use plastic film to spread them on the ground to drive locusts to the film, because the film is smooth and the locusts can't escape, so it's easy to catch them.

Gryllus crittatus Eat the adults, catch them with your bare hands, or lure them with lights at night.

Crickets: Eat the adults, catch them with your bare hands or hit them with a branch.

The katydid, also known as the caddisfly, is caught in a similar way to the cricket.

Silkworms, serpentine silkworms mainly eat pupae, is a domesticated insect, the wild is not easy to meet.

The moths include various moths such as moths, moths, moths, and moths, and because their larvae have long hairs and ugly appearance, they usually eat the pupae.

Butterflies All kinds of butterfly pupae can be eaten, and the larvae of most species are not hairy compared to moth larvae, which can also be eaten.

Termites Eat the adults and eggs, searching for anthills to dig. Termites are divided into two main types that live in trees and in the soil. Tree ?± termites are pure white in color and have no odor when eaten. The ground ?s?s?s?s termites are mostly brownish in color and have a strange taste when eaten.

Ants Eat adults, larvae, nymphs, eggs, digging for anthills, or trapping with food. Special attention should be paid to the fact that species of ants in the stink ant family are poisonous and should not be eaten. The ants are small, with upturned tails and an odor that makes them easy to distinguish from other ants.

Cicadas* Eat the adults, pouncing on them with branches or sticking them with glue sticks. Cicadas that die after drinking can sometimes be seen in large numbers along river banks in some southern mountains and fields, and can be collected.

Dragonfly Adults and larvae can be eaten, and adults can be caught with twigs, or glued, or caught with nets. Larvae are caught in the water with a net.

Negative bugs Adults are eaten and caught in the water with nets.

Stoneworms Eat larvae, larvae live in streams, with a few stones glued together with silk to form a ?ti, bare hands in the water to fish the stone nests of stoneworms, catch the larvae.

Tenebrio Eat larvae, larvae live in wood and live by boring the wood, choose a dead branch with many holes and cut it open to look for the larvae.

Praying mantis Eat adults and larvae, catch adults or larvae directly by hand, praying mantis eggs can also be eaten.

Dragon louse Adults and larvae are edible, and are caught in ponds and rivers with a net.

Bee species Including wasps, hornets, and bees, adults, larvae, and pupae are eaten. You can collect larvae and pupae only after you have found a hive and burned the adults with fire

. There is a danger of getting stung even if you burn them with fire, so choose a nighttime location, prepare a few torches with strong firepower, and protect your head and hands with thick clothing or other items.

In the field activities, earthworms, spiders, crabs, shrimp are also often used as food, but they are not in the list of insects, so I will not mention it here.