Insects are the largest group of animals on earth by far, with about 926,400 different species identified. People will commonly refer to all insects as “bugs“, but this practice is incorrect. Only some insects are true bugs, which are considered to be a special group of insects.
Different kinds of insects are divided into groups, called orders. As you can imagine, there are many insect orders. Here is a collection of the more popular insect control problems, and common insect orders:
- Beetles have the front pair of wings changed into a hard shell to protect the back wings.
- Butterflies and moths have large, often colourful wings.
- Flies, like mosquitoes, have only two wings.
- Ants, bees, and wasps sometimes have stingers, and may live in large colonies (like ant hills).
- True bugs have a mouth that is long and narrow, like a drinking straw. This kind of mouth is often referred to as a beak.
- Grasshoppers eat grass and grain plants, and generate a sound that most people find annoying.
- Odonata, dragonflies and damselflies are top predators of other insects. Both aquatic nymphs and flying adults are carnivorous.
Contrary to what some people believe, spiders, scorpions and other similar animals are not insects, they are arachnids. Arachnids are arthropods, that have four pairs of legs. Furthermore, centipedes and millipedes are arthropods with many legs, and as such should not be referred to as an insect problem either.