Everything You
Know About is
DR NICK CRUMPTON and GAVIN SCOT T
Contents For Ella
Introduction
4–5
All minibeasts are insects . . . and all insects are bugs
6–7
Insects are as old as the dinosaurs
8–9
Insects aren’t smart
10–11
Bees die when they sting you
12–13
Centipedes have 100 legs
14–15
Flies all look the same
16–17
Insects are ugly
18–19
Honeybees are the most important pollinators
20–21
We know how many insects there are
22–23
You sometimes eat spiders in your sleep
24–25
All beetles eat other animals
26–27
Slugs and snails only eat lettuces
28–29
All minibeasts are tiny
30–31
All ‘worms’ are worms
32–33
Insects are quiet
34–35
If it has eight legs . . . it’s a spider
36–37
All spiders catch prey in webs
38–39
False widow spiders and daddy-long-legs are deadly venomous
40–41
Cockroaches are indestructible
42–43
Insects only live in warm places
44–45
Crustaceans only live in water
46–47
Butterflies emerge from cocoons
48–49
Butterflies aren’t very powerful
50–51
All insects lay eggs
52–53
Humans are better builders than insects
54–55
Studying insects is expensive
56–57
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
People don’t need insects
58–59
Printed in China. Papers used by Nosy Crow are made from wood grown in sustainable forests.
Minibeasts don’t need us
60–61
Glossary
62–63
N. C.
For my amazing niece Violet, with love G. S.
First published 2022 Nosy Crow Ltd The Crow’s Nest, 14 Baden Place, Crosby Row, London, SE1 1YW Nosy Crow Eireann Limited 44 Orchard Grove, Kenmare Co Kerry V93 FY22, Ireland www.nosycrow.com ISBN 978 1 83994 203 7 Nosy Crow and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Nosy Crow Ltd. Text © Nick Crumpton 2022 Illustrations © Gavin Scott 2022 With special thanks to Ross Piper for his expert advice and extra thanks to Lewis Bartlett, Gavin Broad, Beulah Garner and Stephen Montgomery. The right of Nick Crumpton to be identified as the author and Gavin Scott to be identified as the illustrator of this work has been asserted. All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of Nosy Crow Ltd.
135798642
Index
64
Contents For Ella
Introduction
4–5
All minibeasts are insects . . . and all insects are bugs
6–7
Insects are as old as the dinosaurs
8–9
Insects aren’t smart
10–11
Bees die when they sting you
12–13
Centipedes have 100 legs
14–15
Flies all look the same
16–17
Insects are ugly
18–19
Honeybees are the most important pollinators
20–21
We know how many insects there are
22–23
You sometimes eat spiders in your sleep
24–25
All beetles eat other animals
26–27
Slugs and snails only eat lettuces
28–29
All minibeasts are tiny
30–31
All ‘worms’ are worms
32–33
Insects are quiet
34–35
If it has eight legs . . . it’s a spider
36–37
All spiders catch prey in webs
38–39
False widow spiders and daddy-long-legs are deadly venomous
40–41
Cockroaches are indestructible
42–43
Insects only live in warm places
44–45
Crustaceans only live in water
46–47
Butterflies emerge from cocoons
48–49
Butterflies aren’t very powerful
50–51
All insects lay eggs
52–53
Humans are better builders than insects
54–55
Studying insects is expensive
56–57
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
People don’t need insects
58–59
Printed in China. Papers used by Nosy Crow are made from wood grown in sustainable forests.
Minibeasts don’t need us
60–61
Glossary
62–63
N. C.
For my amazing niece Violet, with love G. S.
First published 2022 Nosy Crow Ltd The Crow’s Nest, 14 Baden Place, Crosby Row, London, SE1 1YW Nosy Crow Eireann Limited 44 Orchard Grove, Kenmare Co Kerry V93 FY22, Ireland www.nosycrow.com ISBN 978 1 83994 203 7 Nosy Crow and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Nosy Crow Ltd. Text © Nick Crumpton 2022 Illustrations © Gavin Scott 2022 With special thanks to Ross Piper for his expert advice and extra thanks to Lewis Bartlett, Gavin Broad, Beulah Garner and Stephen Montgomery. The right of Nick Crumpton to be identified as the author and Gavin Scott to be identified as the illustrator of this work has been asserted. All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of Nosy Crow Ltd.
135798642
Index
64
Introduction
During the 4.5-billion-year history of life on earth, certain sorts of animals have done E X T R E M E LY well at different times. The Devonian period (419–359 million years ago), for example, was the ‘Age of the Fish’, while the Mesozoic era (252–66 million years ago) was the ‘Age of the Dinosaurs’. Most people will tell you that we are now living in the ‘Age of the Mammals’, but, really, for the last 400 million years, the Earth has belonged to one astonishing group of animals – the I N S E C T S ! Just take a look at some of these numbers . . .
There are more than 200 MILLION INSECTS FOR EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING living on Planet Earth today! And they are everywhere – living in fresh water, in the air, under the ground, and in the ocean. In fact, insects are actually just one type of animal that belong to a larger group of animals called arthropods and, all together, it’s thought that the 8 billion humans on this planet live alongside 10 QUINTILLION crabs, bees, copepods, flies, gnats, centipedes and all the other amazing animals you will meet in this book. Of all the creatures humans have discovered and named, eight out of ten of them are arthropods. So that means if you chose another species at random from the big messy web, eight times out of ten, you’d pick an arthropod!
Two thirds of all the species of animals that scientists have discovered and described on Earth are insects. This means that if you chose one species completely at random, from the enormous messy web of life, from among whales, tigers, lizards, sharks, jellyfish, squids, frogs and birds . . . two out of every three times, you’d pick a bee, a wasp, a fly or an earwig!
Together with other animals without backbones, like slugs, snails and worms, these minibeasts show a massive amount of DIVERSITY – or differences between each other. This means that even if you know some amazing facts about some minibeasts, it’s impossible to know everything about all of them. And lots of the things you might know about some minibeasts are actually completely WRONG for others. (And you might not know the minibeasts you think you know very well at all . . . ) So, let’s jump into the undergrowth and find out just how wrong everything you know about minibeasts really is!
5
Introduction
During the 4.5-billion-year history of life on earth, certain sorts of animals have done E X T R E M E LY well at different times. The Devonian period (419–359 million years ago), for example, was the ‘Age of the Fish’, while the Mesozoic era (252–66 million years ago) was the ‘Age of the Dinosaurs’. Most people will tell you that we are now living in the ‘Age of the Mammals’, but, really, for the last 400 million years, the Earth has belonged to one astonishing group of animals – the I N S E C T S ! Just take a look at some of these numbers . . .
There are more than 200 MILLION INSECTS FOR EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING living on Planet Earth today! And they are everywhere – living in fresh water, in the air, under the ground, and in the ocean. In fact, insects are actually just one type of animal that belong to a larger group of animals called arthropods and, all together, it’s thought that the 8 billion humans on this planet live alongside 10 QUINTILLION crabs, bees, copepods, flies, gnats, centipedes and all the other amazing animals you will meet in this book. Of all the creatures humans have discovered and named, eight out of ten of them are arthropods. So that means if you chose another species at random from the big messy web, eight times out of ten, you’d pick an arthropod!
Two thirds of all the species of animals that scientists have discovered and described on Earth are insects. This means that if you chose one species completely at random, from the enormous messy web of life, from among whales, tigers, lizards, sharks, jellyfish, squids, frogs and birds . . . two out of every three times, you’d pick a bee, a wasp, a fly or an earwig!
Together with other animals without backbones, like slugs, snails and worms, these minibeasts show a massive amount of DIVERSITY – or differences between each other. This means that even if you know some amazing facts about some minibeasts, it’s impossible to know everything about all of them. And lots of the things you might know about some minibeasts are actually completely WRONG for others. (And you might not know the minibeasts you think you know very well at all . . . ) So, let’s jump into the undergrowth and find out just how wrong everything you know about minibeasts really is!
5
All minibeasts are insects . . . and all insects are bugs
M Y R I A P O D S , such as centipedes and millipedes, have a hard exoskeleton, like insects. But they all have more than six legs. In some cases many, many more.
When it comes to the words we use to talk about bees, beetles and butterflies, things are a bit more confusing than they might seem at first . . . For instance, lots of people talk about minibeasts as though they’re all insects . . . but they’re not. And ‘bugs’ are only a special, particular sort of insect.
Spiders definitely aren’t insects, and snails are more closely related to octopuses than any of the other animals on this page! Confused? Don’t be! Just take a look at this handy guide to who’s who.
Spiders and harvestmen (along with a few other oddballs you’ll meet later in this book) are A R A C H N I D S . They have more than six legs, but only two main body sections.
In this book (and whenever you’re outside) you’re going to meet a lot of A RT H R O P O D S . This isn’t a very common word, but you already know what arthropods are. They are animals without backbones that have jointed legs and a strong outer-casing called an exoskeleton which is split into lots of segments. This helps to protect them and holds all their insides in place. There are F O U R main types of arthropods: the I N S E C T S , the M Y R I A P O D S , the A R A C H N I D S , and the C R U S TA C E A N S . Lastly, C R U S TA C E A N S are to the sea what insects are to the land. These exoskeleton-clad water-wonders include animals like shrimp and lobsters and stranger creatures like barnacles. I N S E C T S are arthropods that have six legs and three main body parts – the head, thorax and abdomen. Beetles, wasps, butterflies, moths, flies and bugs* are the most common types of insects on Earth.
*True ‘bugs’ are actually insects from just one group, called the Hemiptera. They all have sucking mouthparts that most use to slurp sap out of plants . . . so next time someone says a beetle is a bug . . . tell them to watch their mouth (and the bug’s)!
6
As well as these segmented animals, there are a few other minibeasts that you’ll meet in this book, like slugs and snails and many types of worms, that aren’t arthropods at all. They just happen to be mini. Slugs and snails are G A S T R O P O D S and . . . well, you’ll find out about worms later!
So now you know what are – and what A R E N ’ T – bugs and insects, let’s take a closer look at some other ‘facts’ that might need a bit of sorting out. 7
All minibeasts are insects . . . and all insects are bugs
M Y R I A P O D S , such as centipedes and millipedes, have a hard exoskeleton, like insects. But they all have more than six legs. In some cases many, many more.
When it comes to the words we use to talk about bees, beetles and butterflies, things are a bit more confusing than they might seem at first . . . For instance, lots of people talk about minibeasts as though they’re all insects . . . but they’re not. And ‘bugs’ are only a special, particular sort of insect.
Spiders definitely aren’t insects, and snails are more closely related to octopuses than any of the other animals on this page! Confused? Don’t be! Just take a look at this handy guide to who’s who.
Spiders and harvestmen (along with a few other oddballs you’ll meet later in this book) are A R A C H N I D S . They have more than six legs, but only two main body sections.
In this book (and whenever you’re outside) you’re going to meet a lot of A RT H R O P O D S . This isn’t a very common word, but you already know what arthropods are. They are animals without backbones that have jointed legs and a strong outer-casing called an exoskeleton which is split into lots of segments. This helps to protect them and holds all their insides in place. There are F O U R main types of arthropods: the I N S E C T S , the M Y R I A P O D S , the A R A C H N I D S , and the C R U S TA C E A N S . Lastly, C R U S TA C E A N S are to the sea what insects are to the land. These exoskeleton-clad water-wonders include animals like shrimp and lobsters and stranger creatures like barnacles. I N S E C T S are arthropods that have six legs and three main body parts – the head, thorax and abdomen. Beetles, wasps, butterflies, moths, flies and bugs* are the most common types of insects on Earth.
*True ‘bugs’ are actually insects from just one group, called the Hemiptera. They all have sucking mouthparts that most use to slurp sap out of plants . . . so next time someone says a beetle is a bug . . . tell them to watch their mouth (and the bug’s)!
6
As well as these segmented animals, there are a few other minibeasts that you’ll meet in this book, like slugs and snails and many types of worms, that aren’t arthropods at all. They just happen to be mini. Slugs and snails are G A S T R O P O D S and . . . well, you’ll find out about worms later!
So now you know what are – and what A R E N ’ T – bugs and insects, let’s take a closer look at some other ‘facts’ that might need a bit of sorting out. 7
Insects are as old as the dinosaurs
Insects can be fossilised into rocks, but the chances of this happening are pretty small. Some of the most spectacular fossils of insects have instead been found in amber (a fossilised liquid that seeped out of some trees millions of years ago), which some people like to wear as fancy jewellery. These don’t just preserve impressions of insects but whole animals trapped in time! An ant being attacked by a parasite, a wasp being captured by a spider, even a 100-million-year-old shield bug carrying its eggs have all been spotted by scientists in these orangey gems.
Excellent knowledge! By the time the first dinosaurs evolved in the Triassic period they were sharing the world with buzzing, swarming, crawling, nibbling insects. But here’s the thing . . . insects are E V E N O L D E R than the very first dinosaurs – and by quite a long way!
ra
A r t hro p l
eura
M
eg
e an
ura
Th
rip
Tr u
e b u
Beetle g
Mesozoic ERA
Carboniferous period
Permian period 3 0 0 –25 2 M I L L I O N Y E A R S AG O
25 2– 6 6 M I L L I O N Y E A R S AG O
Insect fossils are incredibly rare to find, and even more so from the ancient time when they first appeared, but we know more about the early insects from the C A R B O N I F E R O U S period, about 359 to 300 million years ago. This wet, warm, green world was a paradise for early arthropods, which, thanks to very high oxygen levels, grew to astonishing sizes.
S N A K E F L I E S and B E E T L E S evolved during the Permian period while the world’s continents were all colliding together, forming the supercontinent Pangea.
At the beginning of the Mesozoic era insects continued to diversify, and the relationship between flowers and insects began at least 99 million years ago, by which time the pollinating beetle A N G I M O R D E L L A B U R M I T I N A was sharing pollen between plants – and so were some of the first bees.
3 5 9 –3 0 0 M I L L I O N Y E A R S AG O
Huge relatives of today’s millipedes, such as A R T H R O P L E U R A , wandered over forest floors alongside relatives of cockroaches and grasshoppers. The first flying insects also evolved, such as M E G A N E U R A , a relative of dragonflies that flew on wings reaching 70 centimetres across, the same as that of a kestrel today.
8
rdella gimo na n A rmiti bu
efly
neu
The very first insects, such as R H Y N I O G N AT H A , looked similar to mayflies today and evolved from other arthropods almost 500 million years ago, which means insects have been around for more than TWICE as long as dinosaurs! The world for early insects was warm, early forests were beginning to grow and the Earth’s first land predators – small arachnids and ancient centipedes – were starting to stalk the ground.
Snak
M
a eg
With every year that passes, more and more ancient insects are discovered in amber, so scientists keep learning about the deep history of this terrifically huge – and terrifically old – group of animals.
There was a mass extinction event caused by catastrophic volcanic activity at the end of the Permian period, but insects weren’t too badly affected and the first W A S P S , T R U E B U G S , C R A N E F L I E S , and T H R I P S all began to evolve while the first dinosaurs began roaming the Earth.
9
Insects are as old as the dinosaurs
Insects can be fossilised into rocks, but the chances of this happening are pretty small. Some of the most spectacular fossils of insects have instead been found in amber (a fossilised liquid that seeped out of some trees millions of years ago), which some people like to wear as fancy jewellery. These don’t just preserve impressions of insects but whole animals trapped in time! An ant being attacked by a parasite, a wasp being captured by a spider, even a 100-million-year-old shield bug carrying its eggs have all been spotted by scientists in these orangey gems.
Excellent knowledge! By the time the first dinosaurs evolved in the Triassic period they were sharing the world with buzzing, swarming, crawling, nibbling insects. But here’s the thing . . . insects are E V E N O L D E R than the very first dinosaurs – and by quite a long way!
ra
A r t hro p l
eura
M
eg
e an
ura
Th
rip
Tr u
e b u
Beetle g
Mesozoic ERA
Carboniferous period
Permian period 3 0 0 –25 2 M I L L I O N Y E A R S AG O
25 2– 6 6 M I L L I O N Y E A R S AG O
Insect fossils are incredibly rare to find, and even more so from the ancient time when they first appeared, but we know more about the early insects from the C A R B O N I F E R O U S period, about 359 to 300 million years ago. This wet, warm, green world was a paradise for early arthropods, which, thanks to very high oxygen levels, grew to astonishing sizes.
S N A K E F L I E S and B E E T L E S evolved during the Permian period while the world’s continents were all colliding together, forming the supercontinent Pangea.
At the beginning of the Mesozoic era insects continued to diversify, and the relationship between flowers and insects began at least 99 million years ago, by which time the pollinating beetle A N G I M O R D E L L A B U R M I T I N A was sharing pollen between plants – and so were some of the first bees.
3 5 9 –3 0 0 M I L L I O N Y E A R S AG O
Huge relatives of today’s millipedes, such as A R T H R O P L E U R A , wandered over forest floors alongside relatives of cockroaches and grasshoppers. The first flying insects also evolved, such as M E G A N E U R A , a relative of dragonflies that flew on wings reaching 70 centimetres across, the same as that of a kestrel today.
8
rdella gimo na n A rmiti bu
efly
neu
The very first insects, such as R H Y N I O G N AT H A , looked similar to mayflies today and evolved from other arthropods almost 500 million years ago, which means insects have been around for more than TWICE as long as dinosaurs! The world for early insects was warm, early forests were beginning to grow and the Earth’s first land predators – small arachnids and ancient centipedes – were starting to stalk the ground.
Snak
M
a eg
With every year that passes, more and more ancient insects are discovered in amber, so scientists keep learning about the deep history of this terrifically huge – and terrifically old – group of animals.
There was a mass extinction event caused by catastrophic volcanic activity at the end of the Permian period, but insects weren’t too badly affected and the first W A S P S , T R U E B U G S , C R A N E F L I E S , and T H R I P S all began to evolve while the first dinosaurs began roaming the Earth.
9