Encyclopaedia of Insects (ePub)

Some insects damage crops by feeding on sap, leaves or fruits, a few bite humans and livestock, alive and dead, to feed on blood and some are capable of transmitting diseases to humans, pets and livestock. Nevertheless, without insects to pollinate flowering plants, a necessary process in their reproduction, the terrestrial portion of the biosphere (including humans) would be devastated as a great many organisms rely on flowering plants. Many other insects are considered ecologically beneficial as predators and a few provide direct economic benefit. Silkworms and bees have been used extensively by humans for the production of silk and honey, respectively. Insects have segmented bodies supported by an exoskeleton, a hard outer covering made mostly of chitin. The segments of the body are organized into three distinctive but interconnected units, or tagmata: a head, a thorax, and an abdomen. The head supports a pair of sensory antennae, a pair of compound eyes, and, if present, one to three simple eyes (or ocelli) and three sets of variously modified appendages that form the mouthparts. The thorax has six segmented legs-one pair each for the prothorax, mesothorax and the metathorax segments making up the thorax-and, if present in the species, two or four wings. The abdomen consists of eleven segments, though in a few species of insects these segments may be fused together or reduced in size. The abdomen also contains most of the digestive, respiratory, excretory and reproductive internal structures. The insect outer skeleton, the cuticle, is made up of two layers: the epicuticle, which is a thin and waxy water resistant outer layer and contains no chitin, and a lower layer called the procuticle. The procuticle is chitinous and much thicker than the epicuticle and has two layers: an outer layer known as the exocuticle and an inner layer known as the endocuticle. This encyclopaedia is fed with the information of this subject. This encyclopaedia will be very useful for a wide range of interested groups.