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Insects
Insects have been very successful making up the largest group of animals in the world. There are some 90,000 species in North America alone. About 5,000 of those spend some or all of their lives in the water.
Adult insects have bodies with hard exoskeletons divided into 3 areas. These include the head, thorax and abdomen. They have 2 antennae and compounded eyes on their heads. The mouth is designed for biting sucking, crushing or piercing, The thorax has 3 pairs of jointed legs and usually 2 pair of wings. The abdomen has no legs and is usually used for mating and laying eggs.
Insects go through several stages in their life cycles; egg, nymph, larva, pupa, adult. The animals can look and behave very differently in the various stages of their life cycles. Several spend their early life in an aquatic environment and leave the water only as adults. The mosquito is probably the most well known insect with this type of life style.
There are at least 25 orders in the Insect class. I have grouped some similar ones together on these pages; True Bugs (Hemiptera), Beetles (Cdeoptera),
Flies (Diptera) and Dragonflies and Other Flying Insects (Megaloptera, Odonata, Plecoptera and Trichoptera).
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