Insects are animals with:
- three pairs (6) (usually) of jointed legs,
- one pair of antennae,
- compound eyes, and
- an exoskeleton (their 🦴 bones are on the outside).
Part of
arthropod ("jointed foot") phylum Arthropoda
in
🐟︎ 🐢︎🐇︎🐜︎🐛︎ animal kingdom Animalia.
Insects are divided into 6–10 million species, making up 50–90% of all animal types on earth. You will find insects in almost all parts of the land and air, and some parts of the ocean.
🚧 In the future, we may add here identification paths for specific species of insects, probably starting with
monarch butterfly Danaus plexippus,
🐝︎ honeybee genus Apis,
🐝︎ bumblebee genus Bombus
(Michigan Natural Features Inventory)
( ▶︎ educational videos from OSU),
and videos ↗ above or to right of rehearsals before 4-H presentation Be a Bee.
For full effect, select a video image,
then icons YouTube (if present), ⏯︎ ☒ Skip Ads (if present), ㏄ captions
(if you wish), ⛶ fullscreen, and ▶︎ Play.
Then ↗ above or to right is a video highlighting bees in the backyard (PBS program Nature episode "My Garden of a Thousand Bees").
For full effect, select the video image,
then icons ⤢ fullscreen, ㏄ captions=On,
and ▶︎ Play.
gall adelgid Adelges cooleyi,
balsam woolly adelgid Adelges piceae,
hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) Adelges tsugae,
two-lined chestnut borer Agrilus bilineatus,
emerald ash borer (EAB) Agrilus planipennis,
beech scale/beech bark disease Cryptococcus fagisuga,
mountain pine beetle (MPB) Dendroctonus ponderosae,
black-legged deer tick genus Ixodes
ticks and ⚕︎ tick-borne diseases (🇺🇸 USA CDC),
🐝︎ spotted lanternfly (SLF) Lycorma delicatula,
🕷 spruce spider mite Olibonhychus ununguis,
🕷 eriophyid mite Phyllocoptes fructiphilus,
Japanese beetle Popillia japonica,
pine shoot beetle Tomicus piniperda,
northern or Asian giant "murder" hornet Vespa mandarinia
▶︎ nice PBS Nova video segment,
A nice 8-minute video segment describing this appears at time index 13:45–22:00 in PBS program Nova episode "Ocean Invaders."
For full effect, select the video button, then
icons ⤢ fullscreen, ㏄ captions=On,
scroll to time index 13:45, and ▶︎ Play for 8 minutes 15 seconds.
firefly family Lampyridae
(despite its common name, not a
fly order Diptera,
but a
🐞︎ beetle order Coleoptera
), and
🐜︎🐛︎ true bug order Hemiptera.
Please let us know which other species you would like to see here, using the
button at the bottom of this page.
3% of insects in your garden are pests.
[citation needed]
If true, that would make 97% of insects in your garden beneficial or neutral.
Thus, the way you make a pest problem worse is to spray for pests.
To be effective, 🌱︎🚶︎ gardeners:
-
Need to understand that plants can take 50% of its leaves being eaten, and be living just fine.
[citation needed]
-
Need to recognize harmful (or beneficial and neutral) insects in all life stages: 🐞︎🐛︎🐜︎🐝︎ adult, ⚫︎ egg and 🐛︎ larva (caterpillar).
This will inform your decision about whether to attack it (and just that) or not.
-
If you see a pest larva being parasitized, leave it! It's lifespan is very limited: as soon as the parasite eggs hatch, they will consume the pest larva, then metamorphose into adults, which will go out and parasitize your pest's siblings.
-
OK, so several of the insects above are terrible, and you should act against them immediately. But know what insect you are facing, why you are attacking it, and use the most-effective and most-targeted method of doing that!