All About Insects

Welcome to the OK Let's Learn Podcast. This is two podcasts and one, one where we

dive into tons of great books and stories, and another where we just dive into

tons of different topics. My name is Kevin O'Keefe, so today OK let's learn

about insects. Yes, those bugs, those critters, those annoying pests, any word you

want to describe, but what is an insect? This is a beginning of a series of

episodes where we'll dive into specific types of insects that we all know, but

overall, this is an introductory episode on what insects are, the types, what

makes them different than other animals, and they're just fascinating, and I

would argue if you're as old as me, you didn't learn this in school, and especially

my grandparents out there, my parents out there that are listening. Kids, trust me, I

teach second grade, kids love to learn about what's out there in their

environment that they have exposure to, that they see every day, so there's an

opportunity lost to learn about all these unbelievable creatures. Some are kind,

some are interesting, some you want to be around, and some you don't want anywhere

near you, so take a deep breath, and yes, look all around you, maybe not in a

winter time, because that's something we'll learn, they're not out during a

winter time, are they actually alive or aren't they? But spring, summer fall, you

may not see them right in front of your eyes, they might be tiny, they might be

hiding under a leaf, crawling in the grass, flying overhead, or you know what?

They could even be living inside the tree that you're looking at, or underground

under that rock, but they're everywhere. So right off the bat we have to start

with this, how are animals grouped? Scientists like to group them by their

characteristics, what their bodies are like and how they live. Animals can be

grouped in many ways, some have backbones, they're called vertebrates, some don't

have backbones, they're called an invertebrates, insects are invertebrates,

that means they don't have a backbone like humans, dogs, birds, or fish, instead

insects have something different, they have a hard outer covering called an

exoskeleton, think of it like a suit of armor on the outside of their bodies,

so what makes an insect an insect compared to other animals? Not every tiny

crawling creature is an insect, spiders, they're not insects, worms, not insects. What

makes an insect special? Well, the characteristic that you need to know right up

front is they have three main body parts, the head up front, the middle part

called the thorax, and the end called the abdomen, and yes, they have six legs,

two and ten eye, and most have wings, but not all. If it doesn't have six legs,

it's not an insect, that's the big takeaway you need to know from this episode.

Spiders, arachnids, that's their official name, go back to my previous episode on

Arachnidhweaver, back in Greek mythology, these spiders have eight legs,

centipedes, what about them? And my student Henry asked this, and of course I

didn't have the answer, because I never learned about insects growing up, but

now that I'm diving into it, Henry, let me get back to you. My initial thought

Henry, no, it doesn't have six legs, right? Because that's what Henry said. No, it

has many legs, so is it an insect? No, it's actually another group of invertebrates

again, not having a bone called an anthropod, and it even gets more complicated

than that, because you wonder why we don't know this? Well, a centipede, because

it has many legs, it's a myriapod. Yes, myriapod means many legs, but this is

digressing off our main topic. Bottom line, you got to know, insect, six legs,

three body parts, two antennae, and often many of them have wings, although not

everyone. So where do they live? Very simply everywhere. It's not even necessary

to go into detail as to where they live. Clearly different habitats, different

types of insects, but they begin their life as eggs. After that, they grow into one

of two ways. Either there's a complete metamorphosis, like the episode that I did on butterflies

or frogs. They go from an egg to a larva to a pupa to an adult. The ladybug, other than

the butterfly, is a good example of this. When it hatches, it doesn't look like a ladybug

at all. It looks like a tiny crawling creature. Eventually, like the butterfly, it forms

a pupa, changes inside and comes out as this beautiful red and black spotted beetle that

we recognize. Some have an incomplete metamorphosis. Just goes from an egg to an

nymph to an adult. A grasshopper grows this way. The baby grasshopper known as a nymph looks

like a tiny version of the adult, but without wings. As it grows, it molds, which means

it sheds its exoskeleton, and it becomes bigger over time.

I mean, here's the thing about insects. Again, this huge overarching view of this amazing

category of an animal. I mean, you have everything from cockroaches to butterflies to grasshoppers,

to crickets, mosquitoes, ants, bees. The list goes on and on. Just remember that the key

piece is that they have to have three body parts. Like we mentioned before, you got the head,

you've got the thorax in the middle, and then you've got the abdomen at the end. And very often,

with the head, it's the center of the insect's senses. And every insect's eyes and mouth are

different. And all these different insects so many deserve their own episode, and they will have

their own episode. But understand this as well. Some insect's eat plants. Some insects don't.

Some insects eat animals. Some insects have wings. Some don't.

The eyes. Some insects can see distinctly, like we do other insects can't see hardly at all.

Answer a perfect example. They see poorly. Instead of their vision, they mostly use smell

through their antennae, and all these like different chemical trails. They follow scent paths,

left by other animals to find their food. Honeybees? They can't see red, but they can see almost all

the other colors. Butterflies? Same thing. They can see even more colors, even ultraviolet that we

can't see. And it makes sense, right? Because they're out there looking at all these different flowers,

and they particularly go to certain flowers. And it's the flowers colors that say, hey, come here,

come here, butterfly, come visit me. And how about the insects' mouths?

They're as varied as the eyes. Think about it. Some look like sponges. Others look like scissors or

needles. And each insect's mouth is designed for eating certain types of food. And this makes sense.

Some insects bite and chew salad foods. Others suck liquids. And others like

purester foods. And we know this, but how about that mosquito? I mean, we can't see this, but

its mouth is long and sharp and is perfect for sticking that mouth right into our skin and sucking

our blood. Sorry. And speaking of sorry, farmers. A lot of us, I think, don't know about these insects,

but there's these tiny aphids. Listen to all these different. They call them past. Yes, because they

destroy farmers crops. You've got the green peach aphid, the corn leaf aphid, the potato aphid.

I bring them up because they're mouths. They're basically like straws. They suck sap from the plant

leaves and the stems through this straw in their mouth. And you talk about pests and being able to

harvest so many different foods. These farmers load these little guys. But with every animal you've

got prey and you've got predator and you know who farmers love. That we all love that ladybug

because they eat these aphids all the time. So we've talked about the eyes. We've talked about the

mouths. Now, how about those antennas? Yeah. They are different shapes and sizes as well. And they

help the insects learn all about their surroundings. We don't we don't have them. It'll be interesting

if we did. I mean apparently you've ever started right in science fiction hundreds of years ago.

Apparently thought our aliens, whenever they visit us, have antennae. I guess it makes sense.

But the antennas on insects are used for smell and touch. Some can pick up sounds, some can detect

movements. And yes, very often because a lot of insects don't have our noses. Most like the cricket

use their antenna to smell. Now, we've been talking all about the head of insects and what what

else is on the head, right? How about our ears? Well, can't go back to the cricket? Yeah, they have

ears, but they're under legs. They're not on the side of their head. And that brings us to the

foreacts, the middle section of all the insects. This is where they all have three pairs of

jointed legs. Notice I said three pairs. That's six altogether with each pair, one being on the

left side, one being on the right side. And right there at the thorax, not all the time, but very

often you will have two pairs of wings. Again, one on the left, one on the right. In the legs, you

can imagine they're adapted to their habitat over years of evolving to survive. The grasshopper,

for example, their legs designed to jump, escape quickly. And yes, they're powerful,

they're muscular. And there, as you know, the defining characteristic of the grasshopper,

just look at it. The legs stand out where you have other legs, maybe like the honeybee,

you look at them and they're all fuzzy. And what is it that that important job is doing those legs?

It's about collecting pollen and beetles that swim in the water. Well, they will have, let's say,

legs that are shaped like ores that will help them move through the water. Now, I mentioned that

all the legs are found in the middle section of an insect at the thorax. And you may be thinking,

how about the caterpillar? The kids, the hungry caterpillar. It's the first book that my granddaughter

just loves and devours talk about the pun, pun unintended. But you may think, the caterpillar,

what's up with that? It's not just the middle where all the legs are, but in fact, technically, yes.

It looks like it has lots of eggs, but the six legs are near its head right there at the thorax,

and those are the real insect legs for the caterpillar. The others are like temporary, like helper legs,

and they're called pro legs, and they disappear when the caterpillar becomes the butterfly.

Now, wings. Only adult insects have wings. Now, when I say adult, this is not like you become an

adult at age 18, and you're going to be able to live for another 60, 70 years. No, for insects,

you're an adult. It's like your final stage of your life. I mean, if we're going to use a

golf metaphor here, you got 18 holes. You're only getting your wings there as you're

teeing off on the 18th hole. I mean, imagine this. And in terms of their lifespan, most insects live

less than a year. Their life cycle goes from anywhere from a few weeks to only a few months.

Yes, there's other species that stretch longer, but here's the typical life cycle for an insect

in North America. Der egg survived through the winter. The young insects hatch in the spring,

the adults appear in the summer, and yes, they pass away by late fall. That's why we're talking

about. You don't see insects in a winter time, but this is a generalized statement. That means

that's the most common for most insects. But how about this? The queen termite. And we know this

adults that own homes. Oh my goodness, you don't want a termite. They can live 20 to 50 years.

This queen stays inside the county, laying eggs while their workers feed and protector. Very,

very unusual. Cicadas, there are other ones that live long time. They can live upwards of 15 years,

but almost all that time is spent underground. And a lot of us have heard news cycles where it comes

up every few years that there'll be an invasion of cicadas because here they come up and the

knights will be just loud because they end up coming out of their hibernation. And when they

ultimately come out of their hibernation, they're at their adult stage and they only live for a few

weeks. So think of that. How would you like to be sleeping for 15 years and then just come up and

live and have a great time for only a few months? Crazy. And then on the flip side, there's this

Mayfly. What happens with them? They only live a few hours. One day at the most. And yes,

they're called Mayflies because they appear usually in May, springtime. Now, the final point about

the wings, and this is obvious, but it's not a stress to say that these insects have

survived for millions of years because of the wings. Think about it, right? They're able to

move quickly on the dime from place to place to get away from predators. Now, the final section

of an insect's body is the abdomen. We have an abdomen, right? That's our belly. That's where we

digest our food and the same thing with insects. Insects abdomen is also the part of the body

where the female produces their eggs. It's also where they breathe. Again, like us,

but what's interesting about insects that's different from us, we have lungs, insects don't,

and that's the primary reason that insects don't grow as big as they do because they can't

take in enough air to circulate through their body that would create energy and move their body

to grow and grow like we do, and that's the function of our lungs. Instead, especially if you look

at a cricket's body close up, you'll see a line of tiny holes on its side. That's where the

insects take in air, the oxygen to breathe. Now to wrap up our podcast, we talked about another

feature of what makes an insect, and that is that they don't have a backbone. They're inverted

rays, and we have our bones inside, but no, the insects have the armor that we talked about, the

exoskeleton. The exoskeleton is made of this tough, flexible material called kighten. It protects

the insects, soft insides, like I said before, like you are a knight in shining armor, and that

armor is tough. And here's the part that's so interesting. You're thinking, okay, beetle, armor,

I get it, you got the grasshopper, yeah, you got some, you can see the exoskeleton there,

but you may be thinking, what about the bee, that little squishy kind of like wonderful honeybee?

Oh yeah, it does have an exoskeleton, it does, but it's harder to see. Why? Because the exoskeleton on

a bee is thinner, it's more flexible, and yeah, it's covered, it's all covered with those fuzzy hairs

that we know that it's there to collect the pollen. And certainly that's a future episode,

but bottom line is these bees are flying around just like their medieval knights as well. They've

got the exoskeleton. Friends, this has been a fun journey on an introduction to insects. I hope

you have a better understanding of what makes an insect an insect. And like I said, future episodes,

no doubt on the most popular insects out there. And speaking of that, let's finish the podcast

with the top 20 insects that are out there. Yeah, no particular order, we all know them.

Ants, mosquitoes, honeybees, houseflies, cockroaches, the monarch butterfly, termites,

the bed bugs, the dragonfly, the crickets, the wasp, or the yellow jackets, the fireflies,

the praying mantis, the grasshoppers, lice, you, flees, even worse,

the cicada, the bumblebee, so many different bees. And yes, how about the moth and the Japanese

beetle? And of course, we'll wrap up with the ladybug. Reach out to me at kevmok21 at gmail.com.

We have a Facebook group. Okay, let's learn that'll be in the comments.

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