Fun and Weird Facts About Insects

 

• Two billion people consume insects daily, living mostly in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

• It is rumoured that crickets can tell the outside temperature: Count the number of chirps they make in one minute, divide by 4, and then add the number 40 to reach it.

• There are about 1,900 known species of edible insects available.

• Insects are among the most diverse group of animals in the world, with over 1 million known species living. That amounts to over half of all known animals. As far as estimations go, there are 6 to 10 million species of insects on the planet, most of which have not been discovered yet.

• It is estimated that there are 10 quintillion insects - or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 - alive on earth at any given time.

• The most popular species of edible insects are, in descending order, beetles, caterpillars, bees, wasps, ants, grasshoppers, locusts and crickets.

• The FDA already accepts as much as 60 insect fragments per 100 grams of chocolate, so you have probably been eating insects for longer than you think.

• Entomophagy is the practise of eating insects. Entomon derives from Greek and means "insect(ed)", literally " cut in two", referring to an insect's segmented body. Phagein means "to eat", hence, "insect eating".

• The Jumbo supermarket chain in the Netherlands has already started selling ready meals containing insects, in 800 of it's supermarkets.

• Crickets are considered to be a sign 昆虫販売 of good luck in many cultures including Japanese and Chinese.

• Unlike most other animal species, insects have an exoskeleton, which protects them from the environment.

• They are cold- blooded, they reproduce rapidly and live in big populations.

• They metamorphose and can adapt to the seasonal changes around them.

• Many insects do not require their parents to look after them.

• Locusts are able to eat their weight in food in only one day. People eat their body weight in 6 months.

• Honeybees actually have hair on the eyes.

• Female crickets can't chirp, only male crickets can chirp.

• 8 out of 10 animals living on our planet are insects.

• A snail is able to sleep for years consecutive years without waking up.

• Some worms in Australia are more than 1 m 20 cm long.

• The total weight or all termites living on our planet is 10 times more than the weight of all humans put together

• The heaviest insect on the planet weighs an astonishing 70g.