Did you know that there are many more kinds of insects on earth than any other kind of living creature? It's hard to imagine, but 95% of all the animal species on the earth are insects! Millions of insects can exist in a single acre of land! Over one million species have been discovered by scientists, and they think that there might be ten times that many that haven't been named yet!
They are divided up into 32 orders, or groups of insects. The largest order is the beetles (Coleoptera) with 125 different families and around 500,000 different species. In fact, one out of every four animals on earth is a beetle. Scientists estimate that 10% of the animal biomass of the world is ants, and another 10% is termites. This means that 'social insects' probably make up an incredible 20% of the total animal biomass of this planet!
Insects eat more plants than all the other creatures on earth! They are also so important in the breakdown of plant and animal matter, that without them, we would have a world covered with dead plants and animals! In addition to all of this, insects are a major food source for many other animals.
Insects are incredibly adaptable creatures and have evolved to live successfully in most environments on earth, including deserts and even the Antarctic. The only place where insects are not commonly found is in the oceans. Insects have an amazing number of differences in size, shape, and behavior, but they all have 4 characteristics in common.
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