The Bug Handbook

The Bug Handbook — page 1 — What are bugs In this book we define a bug as a type of animal with a hard outer body exoskeleton a segmented body and legs and no backbone invertebrate Some scientists argue that only certain types of insects are true bugs but we’re going to use that term in a general sense and look at a group of animals called arthropods The number of body and leg segments varies from bug to bug Spiders have two body sections and eight legs Insects have three body sections and six legs Some bugs have many body sections and many legs The number of sections and legs determines a bug’s species and class Some bugs including bees and wasps can fly while others including centipedes and caterpillars move around by crawling 8

The Bug Handbook — page 2 — A type of jumping spider the peacock spider has a unique dance where it wiggles its third pair of legs to get attention 9

The Bug Handbook — page 3 — How many bugs are there in the world Entomology is the scientific study of bugs Entomologists have identified hundreds of thousands of different species and they believe there may be millions more to discover Scientists estimate that there are about 10 quintillion that’s 10 followed by 18 zeros individual bugs living in the world Compare that to the 7 billion 7 followed by 9 zeros people on the planet and it’s pretty clear that there are a lot more bugs than humans 10

The Bug Handbook — page 4 — A bulldog ant right battles a wasp Because both can sting this fight may seem evenly matched but the bulldog ant’s strong pincers give it an advantage 11

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