Insect
Red wood ant.
Old World swallowtail (a butterfly)
Insects are usually small animals, with three pairs of legs. They should not be confused with their relatives, the other arthropods, including spiders and centipedes, which can have a different number of legs.
An insect's body is divided into three parts: the head, the thorax and the abdomen. The legs are located on the thorax, which usually also bears two pairs of wings. This may vary with the species.
Insects are the most common and diversified animals in the world. There are more than one million known species of insects, and probably many more.
There are many, very different groups of insects:
- Butterflies and moths
- Beetles and their relatives: ladybirds, fireflies...
- Ants, wasps, hornets, bees, bumblebees and their relatives
- Flies, mosquitos and their relatives
- And many others, including grasshoppers, crickets, cockroaches, mantis, dragonflies, bugs...
See also
- Spiders are distant relatives of insects, and are often mistaken for them
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