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Posted on October 13, 2009 by Adam Anders | Posted under Science
Insects and Their Traits
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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 pretty much what you what expect, while the thorax is like a torso that connects to the head. And the abdomen connects to the thorax, and looks like the backside of the creature. The possession of six jointed legs is another thing that sets insects apart from other creatures. There are three pairs of legs in all, and all of them attach to the thorax. If you stumble upon a tiny insect-like creature that has legs attached to its abdomen, then it is something other than an insect. Another typical trait of insects is that they have antennae protruding from their head. I should point out that while most insects do indeed have antennae, there are a few species that don't. One more charcteristic is the presence of wings. There are a few types of insects that can't fly, but wings should be present at some point in their development. One last characteristic is the presence of a hard exoskeleton. Using the above characteristics as a guage, it should be fairly simple to identify insects. The complications come during certain periods of the insect's life cycle when it may bot display all insect-like characteristics. Caterpillars, for instance, do no display wings or antennae, but when they grow into butterflies they will. So it is very helpful to look at both an adult specimen and maturing specimen. Let's have a look at some animals that are commonly mixed up with insects. As you may know, spiders are not insects but rather arachnids, which we can see by counting their legs. Spiders exhibit 8 legs, so we know upon first glance that they are not insects. Slugs and snails are not insects either, as we can confirm by counting their legs: wait, they don't have any legs! The last example is the centipede. Centipedes are creatures called chilopa, not insects. They do not have a definite number of legs, but they do show one pair of legs on evert body segment. And centipedes have a large number of body segments!And centipedes can have very long bodies with many many body segments. About The Author: Get cute free dog clip art at Clipart For Free. |
Tags: WHAT IS AN INSECT, WHAT ARE INSECTS, INSECT INFORMATION, INSECT CHARACTERISTICS
