What Makes An Insect An Insect?

By Author: Adam Anders
Total Articles: 41
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To many of us insects are nothing but creepy crawlies, ugly little nasties, and annoying pests. Insects, however, play a very critical role in our world and its ecosystems, with millions of insects in existence. They are a subset of arthropods, a category of animal that has a body split up into distinct segments, as well as an exoskeleton.

There are lots of animal that you might mistake for insects if you don't know the difference, but insects can be easily told apart by a few basic characteristics. One such distinguishable characteristic is that insects have bodies divided into three segments. Those three segments are the head, the thorax, and the abdomen. The head is self explanatory, while the thorax is connected to the head, much like a human torso. And the abdomen is attached to the thorax, like the backside of the insect.

The possession of six jointed legs is another thing that sets insects apart from other creatures. The six legs are connected to the thorax in pairs. If you spot a small creature with legs attached to the abdomen, then it is not an insect. Another characteristic is ...
... the presence of antennae attached to the insect's head. It is worth noting that this is typical of insects, but that a small number of insects do not have antennae. On top of that, another characteristic is the presence of wings. It's worth noting that while insects have wings at some point during their development, that there are a small number of insect spieces that do not fly. One final characteristic is the insect's hard exoskeleton.

It is pretty easy to identify insects based on the above characteristics. The problem is that during certain times in an insect's life cycle it may not display all adult insect characteristics. As an example, butterflies may exhibit wings and antennae, but caterpillars don't. So it is important to look at both an adult and a developing specimen.

Let's take a look at a couple of creatures that are commonly confused with insects. It is fairly common knowledge among adults that spiders are not insects but arachnids, as we can confirm by counting their number of legs. Spiders possess eight limbs, so instantly we know that they are indeed not insects. Slugs or snails are not insects either, which we can confirm by counting their legs - wait, they don't have any legs! The last example is the centipede. Centipedes are not insects but instead chilopa. They don't possess a set number of limbs, instead having a single pair of legs per body segment. And centipedes can have many body segments.
To study in more depth about insects and see insect-

related educational materials like Butterflies free clipart

vist .