5 Fascinating Facts About Insects

It doesn’t matter how well you clean your home, you are never too far away from an insect, be it the crawling or flying variety. The following are some interesting facts about insects and their behavior and habitats.

The Most Versatile of Creatures

The world is full of wild and wonderful creatures, and most of them are insects. There are over a million different documented species, whether flying, hopping, jumping, or crawling. Every insect has one thing in common: they all have three segments in their bodies, which are the head, thorax, and abdomen.

Scientists believe insects are so plentiful because of their size, most being hard to catch. Also, the diversity of their food consumption helps, as they can eat almost anything. When it comes to quick and efficient breeding, these mighty little creatures do that in spades.

The Mighty Beetle

More than 380,000 species of beetles have been documented so far, and that’s just scratching the surface. A recent study showed that the reason these insects are so plentiful is because of their versatility and ability to adapt to any lifestyle, ensuring they’ll never go extinct, sticking around long after mankind is gone.

The Miami Tiger beetle is called that because of its array of iridescent stripes. These beetles, however, were not named after their stripes. They were named that because if they were the size of tigers, they would give mankind a run for its money. They can move at lightning speeds to ambush their needed meal, be it ants, smaller beetles, or other insects.

Ants and Insects Taking Over

Around 10 quadrillion ants are roaming the world today. So the next time you go out, look down. Chances are, you’ll see these tiny but mighty insects scurrying around your feet. If you want to break that number down even further, it means there are 1.8 million ants for every human.

Even though insects are extremely versatile, there is one place they have yet to conquer: Antarctica. In fact, scientists have only recorded one insect that was capable of surviving in this harsh environment and that was the Belgica Antarctica, a fly that is less than an inch in length.

The Comfort of the Ocean

So far, the ocean is the only place left on Earth that’s free of insects. Sadly, there are many other animals present that can still eat you.

No one can explain why insects have yet to make a home in the ocean. It could be due to the lack of food sources or no habitat to live in.