Ecology Class with a difference - Class 9

Today we basically learned about insects and different types of insects.

Insects have been one of the most successful animals on the Earth.  They have 6 legs and exoskeleton. IF they do not have 6 legs then they are not insects. We think any thing small is an insect but no they need to have 6 legs.

Then we said well what is the difference between endoskeleton and exoskeleton. Exoskeleton is the skeleton on the outside while endoskeleton means the opposite. SO we made a little list to look at it briefly.

 Exoskeleton: Insects, spiders, crabs etc.

Endoskeleton: Humans, Birds, Fish, reptiles e.t.c.

The body structure of the insects. It has a head, thorax, abdomen. If the insect has wings they would be on the thorax. And their 6 legs, 3 on either side. Head has eyes and some times brain because most of the time it is in the thorax. And abdomen has the digestive system.

Now how do they breathe? How does their respiratory system work? Insects have holes that are like pipes to breath its called their Tracheal System. And because of that they always remain the same size.

Do we have anything common with insects? We may not know it but we do. They are:

• ·       Social
• ·       Live in colonies

When I am saying colonies for insects I am talking about termites. They have the most voguish colonies on Earth as an insect. So, as we know they live in mounds which they make by mud and saliva. And the they have very clean and complex houses. You know what wonder of this world were inspired by these houses? The Egyptian Pyramids. Can you believe it? Humans inspired by a tiny insect. There are many termites in a mound between 1 million to 1 crore. Since there are so many termites,  a lot of heat is  produced . That’s why they make the holes. It’s their ventilation. The African termites can make a mound so big that sometimes it can be taller than a giraffe? Truly splendid? I think so.

Then we learned about other animals. Like honeybee and fireflies. They do something called the waggle dance which basically is a dance when a bee wants to show where the food is, it dances in a shape of 8 and depending on the sun it sees the angles and then waggles. Isn’t that impressive too?

After that we went on a walk where we spotted many different kinds of insects.  

- By Shahana Shameer, Grae 6