6 legs, 3 body parts. (head, thorax, abdomen)

 It is impossible to answer about insects without talking about the group of animals that they belong to, the ARTHROPODS.  The arthropods are a group of animals that are characterized by two distinct traits, they have an exoskeleton (a skeleton on the outside of their bodies) and jointed legs.  In fact the word “arthropod” comes from this last feature.  The word arthropod is actually two

 Greek words Arthros (which means jointed) and Podos (which means leg or foot).  Put them together and you have “jointed leg or foot.”

     Arthropods are the creatures most often referred to as “creepy crawlies”.  This makes them sound nasty!  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Arthropods are nothing short of amazing and wonderful.  Arthropods were the first animals that crawled out of prehistoric oceans on to land some 420 million years ago.  They have since evolved into more diverse forms than the imagination can keep up with.  Arthropods are the most dominant life form on earth and without them our existence would not be possible.  Among the arthropods you will find several groups:  The insects, the arachnids, the crustaceans and the myriopods. 

Insect - (from the latin word “insectare” which means “to cut into”)

They are the most successful life form on the planet!  There are over 1,000,000 species already described and many millions yet to be discovered. (of the millions described we still know very little about most of them.  I like to explain this to students interested in entomology as a career in terms of job security)  They dominate every habitat on the planet except for salt water. 

A group of arthropods which are distinct in that they have 6 legs and 3 separate body parts:  Head, Thorax and Abdomen.

Insects include such creatures as beetles, butterflies, ants and wasps, praying mantids, cockroaches, flies, dragonflies, walkings sticks and the list goes on and on….

Insects are the most successful of the arthropods.  In fact, they are the most successful creatures on earth ever!  We like to think we are but the truth of the matter is we are not.  Scientists have hypothesized that if all the humans disappeared tomorrow the only thing that would happen is that everything else would simply fall into equilibrium with each other and the only other animal that would disappear as a result would be …. Lice. (Cooties).

If insects disappeared tomorrow it would take about 6 weeks for all life on land and freshwater to die!  Insects are the earths caretakers.  Without insects, all the animals that ate insects would die.  Then all the animals that ate those animals would die too and so on… Then without insects there wouldn’t be anyone to eat all those decomposing dead animals and on top of that there would be no one to bury and recycle those dead things into the ground and make fertilizer for plants.  That also means there would be no one to turn the soil which supplies plant roots with air and then all the plants would die too and all the animals that ate those plants would die and the animals that ate those animals which ate those plants would also die and eventually between the smell of all the decomposing dead things and eventually running out of canned goods we, yes we would also parish.

The majority of us only recognize insects when they bother us and we label them as pests.  An insect is only a pest when it does something to bother us and the total number of insects that fall into this category are far less than 1% of all known species.

I mean “sure” there is always the pesky fly and the insects which eat our crops and clothes and damage our lawns blah, blah blah…. And sure it could be argued that world wide approximate 1 in 6 people at any given time are currently affected by some insect borne disease.  It still only accounts for a very,  VERY small number of species.

TRIVIA: The word "bug" came from the Celts.  It was originally "BWG" (boog) and meant  "ghost or spirit".  This was associated to none other than the bedbug which came in the night and left it's mark on it's victims.

The only other word in the English language today that has it's origins in the same root is none other than..... you guessed it!  "BOOGY MAN"