Why are insects so diverse By:Barrett

By:Barrett

The Most Dangerous BugMosquitoes are not just

your annoying household pests; they are also the carriers of the fatal disease Malaria which takes the lives of hundreds of millions of people every year. And that is why they rank first in our list for causing more deaths than any other insects combined.

mosquitoe

Another Dangerous Bug

African ant

Moving about in colonies of twenty thousand individuals, these African ants will devour anything to the bone that comes their way. They are so strong that if you tear them in half after being bitten, their jaws will still be locked in your skin. Their queen holds the record for being the largest ant. Watch out for them if you ever happen to go on an African Safari

The Strongest Bug Congratulations are now in order for the dung beetle

Onthophagus taurus, which has just been named the world's strongest insect, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 

Human bodybuilders may pump iron, but these brawniest of bugs lift poop and each other.

(Two males of this species comparing horns. Credit: Alex Wild)Beetles

Rob Knell from Queen Mary, University of London and Leigh Simmons from the University of Western Australia found that the strongest of these beetles could pull 1,141 times its own body weight. That's equivalent to a person lifting close to 180,000 pounds (the same as six full double-decker buses).

Like all elite athletes, these insects must watch their diets too, although their choice of food turns human stomachs. The researchers discovered that if even the strongest male individuals didn't eat much you-know-what over a period of about a few days they were reduced to weaklings. The beetle's strength, however, is mostly due to battles over desired females.

"Insects are well known for being able to perform amazing feats of strength," explained Knell, "and it's all on account of their curious sex lives. Female beetles of this species dig tunnels under a dung pat, where males mate with them. If a male enters a tunnel that is already occupied by a rival, they fight by locking horns and try to push each other out.”

The scientists tested the beetle's ability to resist rivals by measuring how much weight was needed to pull a male beetle out of his hole."Interestingly, some male dung beetles don’t fight over females," said Knell. "They are smaller, weaker and don’t have horns like the larger males. Even when we fed them up they didn't grow stronger, so we know it's not because they have a poorer diet."

He added, "They did, however, develop substantially bigger testicles for their body size. This suggests they sneak behind the back of the other male, waiting until he's looking the other way for a chance to mate with the female. Instead of growing super strength to fight for a female, they grow lots more sperm to increase their chances of fertilizing her eggs and fathering the next generation

The Fastest InsectThe Australian dragonfly is the Fastest

Insect inthe world.

Dragonfly

A dragonfly is a type of insect with large multifaceted eyes, two pairs of transparent wings, and an elongated body.Dragonflies are similar to damselflies, but the wings of most dragonflies are held away from the body when at rest. They are not capable of walking even though they have 6 legs like any other insect.

http://www.bigsiteofamazingfacts.com/what-is-the-fastest-insect-in-the-world-and-where-does-it-come-from

Dragonflies eat mosquitoes, and other small insects like flies, ants, butterflies, and bees. They are found around lakes and ponds because their larvae, also known as nymphs, live in the water.

http://www.bigsiteofamazingfacts.com/what-is-the-fastest-insect-in-the-world-and-where-does-it-come-from

A Unique InsectThe African Bombardier Beetle shoots a boiling

hot (up to 100 degrees Celsius) , toxic fluid that lets out a bang upon detonation. There are two compounds that have to be Bombardier Beetlestored separately in the beetles abdomen because once mixed, they cause an explosion. 

Read more: http://greenanswers.com/q/139998/animals-wildlife/insects/what-are-some-worlds-most-unique-insects#ixzz10BugNt00

Bombardien Beetle

http://greenanswers.com/q/139998/animals-wildlife/insects/what-are-some-worlds-most-unique-insects#ixzz10BugNt00

Some Ways Insects Might AdaptThe relationships of insects to other animal groups remain

unclear. Although more traditionally grouped with millipedes and centipedes, evidence has emerged favouring closer evolutionary ties with the crustaceans. In the Pancrustacea theory, insects, together with among others Malacostraca, make up a monophyletic group (sharing a common ancestor): this is today a well accepted hypothesis[1].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_insects

The oldest definitive insect fossil is the Devonian Rhyniognatha hirsti, estimated at 396-407 million years old.[2] This species already possessed dicondylic mandibles, a feature associated with winged insects, suggesting that wings may already have evolved at this time. Thus, the first insects probably appeared earlier, in the Silurian period.[2]

http://www.bigsiteofamazingfacts.com/what-is-the-fastest-insect-in-the-world-and-where-does-it-come-from.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_insects

The subclass Apterygota (wingless insects) is now considered artificial as the silverfish (order Thysanura) are more closely related to Pterygota (winged insects) than to bristletails (order Archaeognatha). For instance, just like flying insects, Thysanura have so-called dicondylic mandibles, while Archaeognatha have monocondylic mandibles. The reason for their resemblance is not due to a particularly close relationship, but rather because they both have kept a primitive and original anatomy in a much higher degree than the winged insects. The most primitive order of flying insects, the mayflies (Ephemeroptera), are also those who are most morphologically and physiologically similar to these wingless insects. Some mayfly nymphs resemble aquatic thysanurans.

Modern Archaeognatha and Thysanura still have rudimentary appendages on their abdomen called styli, while more primitive and extinct insects known as Monura had much more developed abdominal appendages, as seen here. The abdominal and thoracic segments in the earliest terrestrial ancestor of the insects would have been more similar to each other than they are today, and the head had well developed compound eyes and long antennae. Their body size is not known yet. As the most primitive group today, Archaeognatha, is most abundant near the coasts, it could mean that this was the kind of habitat where the insect ancestors became terrestrial. But this specialization to coastal niches could also have a secondary origin, just as could their jumping locomotion, as it is the crawling Thysanura who are considered to be most original (plesiomorphic). By looking at how primitive cheliceratan book gills (still seen in horseshoe crabs) evolved into book lungs in primitive spiders and finally into tracheae in more advanced spiders (most of them still have a pair of book lungs intact as well), it is possible the trachea of insects was formed in a similar way, modifying gills at the base of their appendages.

So far there is nothing that suggests the insects were a particularly successful group of animals before they got their wings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_insects

How many insects:percentageSales

insectsother

Why are Insects so Diverse?I think insects might be so diverse ,because

there are a lot of jobs for insects ,and not just a few insects could take on all those jobs.That might also be why they have so many characteristics.It might also be because there’s not enough animals and God wanted the whole animal race to be more diverse.Another reason might be that a lot of the insects evolved into different kinds of insects to make it’s race more diverse.One other reason might be because the insects needed different defenses because of their habitats.

Hope you enjoyed this slide show.