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The Most Annoying Insect: Many would
agree that it is the tiny biting fly known as a "punkie" or "no see-um,
" so small it can fly through the fine screening of a door or window.
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The Most Beautiful Insect: Widely
accepted to be the Sunset Moth from Malagasy (Madagascar), a day-flying moth of rainbow
colors.
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The Most Bizarrely-shaped Insect: Arguably,
various species of treehoppers, Family Membracidae (Homoptera), with incredible structures
that resemble thorns and barbs on their pronota (backs). Others with odd shapes are violin
beetles and giraffe weevils.
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A Thorn Bug (Membracid). The bug looks so much
like the nearby thorn, that animals that would like to eat it have trouble finding it.
Smithsonian Photo by Chip Clark.
Copyright 1993 Smithsonian Institution. |
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The Most Destructive Insect: Believed
to be the Desert Locust, existing in areas from Africa to India, which eats its own weight
in food each day, and devours great amounts of grain and vegetation when traveling in swarms
(20,000 tons consumed daily by such a swarm).
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The Most Dangerous Ant: Doubly
dangerous, the Black Bulldog Ant of Australia, stings and bites at the same time and has
been known to cause death in humans.
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The Fastest Flying Insect: Dragonflies
are known to travel at the speed of 35 miles an hour. Hawk Moths, which have been
clocked at a speed of 33.7 miles an hour, come in second.
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The Heaviest Insect: A Goliath Beetle
from tropical Africa, weights in at 3 1/2 ounces.
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The Heaviest Water Insect: The Giant
Water Bug of South America, tips the scales at nearly two ounces.
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The Longest-jumping Insect: One
species of fleas jumps 150 times their own body length.
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The Longest Insect: A giant stick
insect, has a body length of 13 inches. With legs outstretched, its length is 20 inches.
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The Longest-lived Insect: The queen
of termites, known to live for 50 years. Some scientists believe that they live for
100 years.
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The Oldest Fossil Butterfly or Moth: A
Lepidoptera fossil found in England is estimated to be 190 million years old.
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The Loudest Insect: One species of
cicadas can be heard for a quarter of a mile.
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The Largest...
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Group of Insects: The insect Order Coleoptera (Beetles) with some
350,000 described species.
Ant: The Driver Ant of Africa, the worker caste reaching one and 1/3 inches.
Beetle: The nearly 8-inch, Long Horn Beetle, Titanus giganteus, from
South America.
Butterfly: The White Birdwing of the Solomon Islands in the Pacific
Ocean, with wings that span twelve inches.
Fly: A robber fly from South America, with a body of nearly 2 1/2
inches in length.
Moth: The Hercules Emperor Moth of New Guinea and Australia, with a
wing span of 10 1/2 inches. The wing span of the Atlas Moth is 12 inches, but wings of the
Hercules Emperor Moth include a larger area (some 40 square inches).
Swarm of Locusts: A swarm of locusts covering an area of 2,000
square miles crossed the Red Sea in 1889, and was estimated to weigh 500,000 tons and
contain 250 billion (250,000,000,000) individual locusts.
Termite Mound: A mound from Australia, 20 feet high and 100 feet in
diameter at the base. From Africa, mounds have reached 42 feet in height, but with only a
10 foot diameter base.
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The Smallest...
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Group of Insects: The zorapterans, Order Zoraptera, with about two
dozen known species.
Insect: A Fairyfly Wasp - some adults are known to be only .0067 of
an inch in length.
Ant: A Sri Lankan ant, with a length of only one thirtieth on an
inch.
Beetle: The widely distributed, Feather-Winged beetle, Nanosella
fungi - smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.
Butterfly: The Dwarf Blue of South Africa, with a wing span of only
half an inch.
Moth: A micro-lepidopteran from England, with a wing span of
one-ninth of an inch.
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e-mail: info@si.edu
