When you see bees flitting about your garden, you might notice that some of them have orange or yellow clumps along their hind legs. Resembling tiny saddlebags, these bright spots of cargo are pollen baskets or corbiculae. These baskets are found in apid bees, including honey bees and bumblebees.
Each time a bee visits a flower, pollen sticks to its antennae, legs, faces, and bodies.
A bee's legs have an array of combs and brushes. As she becomes laden with pollen, a female bee uses those tools as grooming devices, running them through her body and hair to pull away the pollen. As she brushes herself, she draws the pollen toward her hind legs into those little pockets.
As a bee gathers a batch of pollen, she pushes it into the bottom of the basket, pressing it tightly into what's already there. A full basket can carry as many as a million grains of pollen.
She mixes a little nectar with the pollen to make it sticky and to help it hold together.
Other species of bees have something similar called a scopa. It has the same job, but instead of being a pocket-like structure, it's a a thick mass of hairs and the bees press the pollen between them.
Upcoming Events
Photos of insects and people from the 2022 BugGuide gathering in New Mexico, July 20-24
National Moth Week was July 23-31, 2022! See moth submissions.
Photos of insects and people from the Spring 2021 gathering in Louisiana, April 28-May 2
Photos of insects and people from the 2019 gathering in Louisiana, July 25-27
Photos of insects and people from the 2018 gathering in Virginia, July 27-29
Photos of insects and people from the 2015 gathering in Wisconsin, July 10-12
Previous events
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Classification
Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Synonyms and other taxonomic changes
phylogenetic arrangement of major extant taxa based on latest molecular data shown in(1)
Explanation of Names
Latin insectum, pl. insecta "cut into, cut up" (refers to body segmentation), a literal translation of Greek entomos (εντομος)
Numbers
Worldwide, 25-30 extant orders (+ ca. 10 extinct), depending on authority, up to 1000 families, and well over a million species
In our area (US & Canada): 28 orders, over 600 families, ca. 12,500 genera, and >86,000 spp.(2)(3)
Identification
Three body parts: head, thorax, and abdomen
typically two pair of wings; some groups have one pair or none
Usually one pair of compound eyes; simple eyes (ocelli) present in many groups
Anatomy
See Glossary for terminology.
Overview of insect orders
Range
worldwide and throughout North America (NB: aquatic marine forms conspicuously absent)
Life Cycle
There are two prominent types of life cycles among the insects:
1-Hemimetabolous insects (e.g., dragonflies, mayflies, true bugs, grasshoppers) undergo gradual, or incomplete, metamorphosis. Immature stages (usually called nymphs) go through a series of molts, gradually assuming an adult form. Since the wings develop on the outside of the body, these groups are called exopterygotes. Some orders have immature stages that are aquatic. These possess specialized structures for aquatic life, such as gills, and are called naiads, or larvae.
2-Holometabolous insects have a four-stage life cycle: egg, larva, pupa, and adult (imago). The following orders of insects are holometabolous:
Neuroptera - Antlions, Lacewings and Allies
Hymenoptera - Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies
Trichoptera - Caddisflies
Lepidoptera - Butterflies and Moths
Mecoptera - Scorpionflies, Hangingflies and Allies
Strepsiptera - Twisted-winged Insects
They form a group referred to as Endopterygota or Holometabola.
(4)
Remarks
All the winged insects (including those who have lost their wings over the course of history) constitute a large taxon called Pterygota (sometimes treated as a subclass).
Pterygota orders listed alphabetically
*may be lumped with Cockroaches & Termites
Print References
Eggleton, P., and Belshaw, R. 1992. Insect Parasitoids: An Evolutionary Overview. Philosophical Transitions of the Royal Society of London B 337: 1-20. doi: 10.1098/rstb.1992.0079
Stork, N. E. 2018. How Many Species of Insects and Other Terrestrial Arthropods Are There on Earth?. Annual Review of Entomology 63: 31-45. //doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ento-020117-043348
Gaston, K. J. 1991. The Magnitude of Global Insect Species Richness. Conservation Biology 5(3): 283-296. //www.jstor.org/stable/2385898
Works Cited
| 3. | Evolution of the Insects David Grimaldi and Michael S. Engel. 2005. |
| 4. | How to Know the Immature Insects Hung-Fu Chu, Laurence K Cutkomp. 1992. Wm. C. Brown Publishers. |