What animal kills the most humans? Here's the unexpected predator and how to protect yourself
Between frightening movies like "Jaws" and tales about deadly animal encounters, some fear the wild animal kingdom because of potential danger.
Between frightening movies like "Jaws" and tales about deadly animal encounters, some fear the wild animal kingdom because of potential danger.
Plants & Animals
Feb 2, 2023
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Insects play crucial roles in almost every ecosystem—they pollinate more than 80% of plants and are a major source of food for thousands of vertebrate species—but insect populations are collapsing around the globe, and ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 1, 2023
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Non-native forest tree species can reduce native species diversity if they are planted in uniform stands. In contrast, the effects of introduced species on soil properties are small. This was found by an international review ...
Ecology
Jan 31, 2023
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You lift a stone and staring up at you is a little insect with its tail curled and pincers ready to inflict who knows what. Then you see its attendants—tiny white insects, huddled underneath. Should you drop the stone and ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 30, 2023
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Birds including swallows and martins—known as aerial insectivores—control insect populations and insect-borne disease and provide hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of pest control for agriculture. But these feathered ...
Ecology
Jan 27, 2023
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The EU on Tuesday announced proposals to try to reverse an "alarming decline" in the number of bees—and other insects that pollinate the bloc's crops—including by rewarding organic farming.
Ecology
Jan 24, 2023
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Ants are social insects and the Solenopsis invicta species—known as the fire ant—is no exception. The social interactions of this invasive insect, which comes from South America, are framed within the context of the theory ...
General Physics
Jan 19, 2023
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The search for nectar costs insects a lot of energy, so they have to be as efficient as possible. Colorful patterns on the petals can help with that.
Ecology
Jan 18, 2023
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Lying at the center of the Balkan Peninsula, Kosovo harbors a diversity of ecosystems and conditions that have favored processes leading to the existence of many endemic and rare species. In the past few years, several new ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 18, 2023
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Researchers at North Carolina State University found in a recent study that ants did not adjust their behavior in response to warming temperatures and persisted in sub-optimal microhabitats even when optimal ones were present. ...
Ecology
Jan 16, 2023
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Insects (Class Insecta) are arthropods, having a hard exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax, and abdomen), three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae. They are the most diverse group of animals on the planet and include approximately 30 gladiator and icebug, 35 Zoraptera, 150 snakefly, 200 silverfish, 300 alderfly, 300 webspinner, 350 jumping bristletail, 550 scorpionfly, 600 Strepsiptera, 1,200 caddisfly, 1,700 stonefly, 1,800 earwig, 2,000 flea, 2,200 mantis, 2,500 mayfly, 3,000 louse, 3,000 walking stick, 4,000 cockroach, 4,000 lacewing, 4,000 termite, 5,000 dragonfly, 5,000 thrips, 5,500 booklouse, 20,000 cricket, grasshopper, and locust, 82,000 true bug, 110,000 ant, bee, sawfly, and wasp, 120,000 true fly, 170,000 butterfly and moth, and 360,000 beetle species described to date. The number of extant species is estimated at between six and ten million, with over a million species already described. Insects represent more than half of all known living organisms and potentially represent over 90% of the differing life forms on Earth. Insects may be found in nearly all environments, although only a small number of species occur in the oceans, a habitat dominated by another arthropod group, the crustaceans.
Adult modern insects range in size from a 0.139 mm (0.00547 in) fairyfly (Dicopomorpha echmepterygis) to a 56.7-centimetre (22.3 in) long stick insect (Phobaeticus chani). The heaviest documented present-day insect was 70 g (2½ oz) Giant Weta, though the Goliath beetles Goliathus goliatus, Goliathus regius and Cerambycid beetles such as Titanus giganteus hold the title for some of the largest species in general.
The largest known extinct insect is a kind of dragonfly, Meganeura.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA