Amazing Insect Facts

When meat- eating insects mate, a male is in danger of becoming his wife’s next meal. A male empid fly avoids this by giving a female another insect to eat while he mates with her.

Insects do not have a nose: they smell with their feelers. The feathery feelers of the silkworm moth can smell the scent of a female more than four kilometers away.

Crickets have their ears on their front legs, just beneath their knees!

The Cabbage white butterfly, like most butterflies, has taste buds on its feet. It drums on cabbage leaves with its front feet, tasting for its favorite food of mustard oil.

Many swimming insects need to come to the surface to breathe. Water beetles carry their own air bubble down with them. They trap air under their wings and breathe the air as they swim.

Whirligig beetles have amazing eyes– each eye is divided into two. The upper parts spot danger above the water, whilst the lower parts keep watch under water. Whirligigs often swim quickly in circles on the surface of a pond.

In West Africa, the largest termite nests, or colonies, contain up to 5 million insects. Each colony of termites builds a pointed tower several meters high. Special tunnels bring in fresh air and cooling water, and chimneys take away the heat of all those bodies.

A potter wasp collects mud in its jaws and makes a little pot. It places an egg inside the pot, together with caterpillar which it has stung and paralyzed. When the larva hatches, it will feed on the still– living caterpillar.