Bookworms are actual insects that bore holes in books. A major book-feeding insect is a paper louse that feeds on microscopic mould in poorly kept books.
100 Mind-Blowing Insects Facts
The total population of insects is estimated to be a billion times greater than that of the human population.
Insects can fly up to 3.25km above sea level, at least. Alpine bumblebees have been found living as high up as 3.25km above sea level and could even fly in lab conditions that replicate the air density and oxygen levels at 9km – that’s just higher than Mount Everest.
There are more than one million different species of insects on the planet.
In the course of an average lifetime, while sleeping you could eat around 70 different insects and 10 spiders, or more. Ew.
Insects are attracted to light because of the moon. Bug behaviour can be especially strange, but scientists predict that night insects (like moths) are attracted to lights because they used the light of the moon to navigate the Earth way before artificial lights were made.
The katydid bug hears through holes in its hind legs. Insects are known to be all sorts of strange, but this is one of the cooler fun facts: The katydid hears with its legs! The katydid’s ears are located on its two front legs. Like the human ear, the ear of the katydid collects sound, converts it, and analyses the frequency.
A pound of houseflies contains more protein than a pound of beef. Another little-known fact (Or maybe, just one we don’t want to acknowledge) about insects is that they are a very rich protein source. So much so, that sustainability advocates are calling for insects as a meat substitute.
Nicotine is poisonous to insects. The tobacco plant has a power neurotoxin that is dangerous for insects. While many other plants also have this, the concentration of nicotine in the tobacco plant is much higher than any other.
Mosquitoes are unable to penetrate silk. Mosquitoes can penetrate through cloth with their long proboscis. However, silk has a much stronger durability than most clothes that insects cannot bite through.
Termites and ants are roasted and eaten like popcorn in South Africa. Eating insects is a common occurrence in South Africa. This is also a common street food you can find in parts of Africa.
Spiders are not insects. All insects are classified as six-legged creatures with a head thorax and wings. Spiders are arachnids and only have two body parts: the cephalothorax its eight legs, and its abdomen.
Only female mosquitoes bite you. Need some insects did you know the facts? No problem. Only female mosquitoes bite us because the required nutrition from their victim’s blood is needed to develop their eggs. Male mosquitoes feed on the nectar of flowers.
The most commonly bitten body part by insects is your feet. Here’s the last of our did you know facts. The most common places to be bitten by insects are by the ankles. This is because this area is rarely noticed by us when insects land on our skin.
90% of the Earth’s organisms are insects. Out of the estimated 1.5 million species of organisms on the planet, insects take up ⅔ of that amount.
A pharaoh once bathed his slaves in honey to keep bugs away from him. Whenever King Pepi II would get bothered by insects, he would command that one of his servants be covered in honey to lure the bugs away from him.
Honey can be used for torture. Scaphism was an ancient torture method where the victim was covered all over with honey and then left at the mercy of large amounts of insects.
The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head. Praying mantises are the only known insects able to rotate their heads from side to side.
Most insects hatch from eggs.
In an average lifetime, people eat around 70 assorted insects while sleeping. And about 10 spiders. Oh no!
There are about 91,000 different types of insects in the United States. Think that’s a lot? There are about 1.5 million different insect species in the world!
On average, people eat around 70 different insects throughout their entire lives while they sleep. 10 of those insects are probably spiders.
Bats save the U.S. agriculture industry an estimated $3.7 to $53 billion annually by eating pest insects.
About 80% of all living things on Earth are insects.
Lima beans have an amazing ability to command wasps as a defence. If insects are eating the lima bean’s leaves, the plant gives off a substance that acts as a signal to parasitic wasps to swoop in and destroy their enemy (i.e. the leaf-eating insects).
Squirrel Monkeys eat a varied diet of insects, spiders, bird’s eggs and nestlings, fruits, nuts, blossoms and other forest edibles.
Patas Monkey diet consists mainly of grasses, shelled fruit seeds, berries, locusts and other insects, birds and lizards.
Scientists believe there are around 6 to 10 million different species of insects.
Insects have been around for about 350 million years. To put that in perspective, we’ll note that humans have only been here for 13,000 years.
FORESTS ARE HOME TO OVER 80% OF THE WORLD’S LAND-BASED SPECIES OF ANIMALS, PLANTS AND INSECTS. These animals help to keep the forest healthy. For example, elephants distribute seeds from fruits they have eaten. When the seeds pass through their gut, they come out undigested in their dung, and germinate in the ground.
Axolotls have a surprisingly varied diet. They’re happy to munch their way through everything from worms and molluscs to small fish and insects, which they pick off the surface of the water.
Smaller animals tend to perceive time as if it is passing in slow motion. Insects and small birds, for example, can see more information in one second than a larger animal such as an elephant.
A human will eat on average 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders while sleeping.
FDA regulations allow 10 insects and 35 fruit fly eggs per 8 ounces of raisins.
The average person consumes a pound of insects per year, mostly mixed in from other foods.
Though a lot of people believe daylight saving time was adopted to keep farmers happy, that’s a myth. The first person to seriously advocate for daylight saving time was an entomologist who wanted more sunlit hours to look for insects after work in the summer. He proposed his idea to a scientific society in New Zealand in 1895.