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03.01.1999

A Bug's Life--Up Close

A Bug's Life--Up Close

by Heather Pringle
 

CRAZY ANT (Paratrechina longicornis): The name comes from their habit of moving erratically from place to place.

Humans may dominate Earth, but insects have us formidably outnumbered. The count of insect species tops 850,000, and the total number of insects has been estimated at 10 quintillion (1018). Collectively, they outweigh humans. Some are nasty; some are nice. Some are crucial: insect pollination plays a role in producing about one-third of a typical human’s diet. As E. O. Wilson puts it, “Insects can thrive without us, but we and most other land organisms would perish without them.” These tinted images were created by Dennis Kunkel, a neurobiologist at the University of Hawaii at Honolulu and one of the world’s best photographers of the minute.


HOUSEFLY (Musca domestica): The average number of bacteria on a

single fly is about 1 million.

DOG FLEA (Ctenocephalides canis): Leaping 13 inches—roughly 200 times their body length—is a inch.

HONEYBEE (Apis mellifera): Though long prized for their sweet syrup, they are most

important as crop pollinators.

BEDBUG (Cimex lectularius): Mating habits are crude; the male jabs a hole in the female to deposit sperm.

GERMAN COCKROACH (Blattella germanica):

A female can produce 3,200 young in five months.

FRUIT FLY (Drosophila melanogaster): These fast breeders are favored subjects of geneticists.

MALARIA MOSQUITO (Anopheles quadrimaculatus): Males eat nectar; egg-bearing females suck blood.

JUMPING SPIDER (Plexippus paykulli): In pursuit of prey, they can leap more than 50 times their body length.

CARPET BEETLE (Attagenus megatoma): They eat just about anything—carpets, grain, skin, horn, insects.

NUT WEEVIL (Curculio): The proboscis is used as a tool for feeding and making holes for laying eggs in nuts.

MILLIPEDE (Polyxenus): Some varieties emit a noxious insect-killing fluid when attacked by predators.

BEAN WEEVIL (Acanthoscelides obtectus): Over two dozen weevils can develop in a single bean pod.

 



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