Happy Veterans Day
Jeff Verges/Owner/Operator
Monday, November 11, 2024
Saturday, November 9, 2024
Distribution and Habitats
Insects are distributed over every continent and almost every terrestrial habitat. There are many more species in the tropics, especially in rainforests, than in temperate zones. The world's regions have received widely differing amounts of attention from entomologists. The British Isles have been thoroughly surveyed, so that Gullan and Cranston 2014 state that the total of around 22,500 species is probably within 5% of the actual number there; they comment that Canada's list of 30,000 described species is surely over half of the actual total. They add that the 3000 species of the American Arctic must be broadly accurate. In contrast, a large majority of the insect species of the tropics and the southern hemisphere are probably undescribed. Some 30–40,000 species inhabit freshwater; very few insects, perhaps a hundred species, are marine. Insects such as snow scorpionflies flourish in cold habitats including the Arctic and at high altitude. Insects such as desert locusts, ants, beetles, and termites are adapted to some of the hottest and driest environments on earth, such as the Sonoran Desert.
Read more, here.
Jeff Verges/Owner/Operator
742 Santa Anita Court
Eugene, OR 97401
541-688-0580 Eugene
503-371-8373 Salem
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
Whale
Jeff Verges/Owner/Operator
742 Santa Anita Court
Eugene, OR 97401
541-688-0580 Eugene
503-371-8373 Salem
Sunday, November 3, 2024
Diversity of Insects
Estimates of the total number of insect species vary considerably, suggesting that there are perhaps some 5.5 million insect species in existence, of which about one million have been described and named. These constitute around half of all eukaryote species, including animals, plants, and fungi. The most diverse insect orders are the Hemiptera (true bugs), Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), Diptera (true flies), Hymenoptera (wasps, ants, and bees), and Coleoptera (beetles), each with more than 100,000 described species.
Read more, here.
Jeff Verges/Owner/Operator
742 Santa Anita Court
Eugene, OR 97401
541-688-0580 Eugene
503-371-8373 Salem
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Happy Halloween
Jeff Verges/Owner/Operator
742 Santa Anita Court
Eugene, OR 97401
541-688-0580 Eugene
503-371-8373 Salem
Sunday, October 27, 2024
MINUSCULE Clip - "Racing Bugs" (2012)
PLOT: The TV series comes in the form of short segments – focusing mostly on a variety of insects – where their mundane, everyday lives take on a humorous turn.
Jeff Verges/Owner/Operator
742 Santa Anita Court
Eugene, OR 97401
541-688-0580 Eugene
503-371-8373 Salem
Thursday, October 24, 2024
Cockroaches
Cockroaches (or roaches) are insects belonging to the order Blattodea (Blattaria). About 30 cockroach species out of 4,600 are associated with human habitats. Some species are well-known pests.
The cockroaches are an ancient group, with their ancestors, known as "roachoids", originating during the Carboniferous period, some 320 million years ago. Those early ancestors, however, lacked the internal ovipositors of modern roaches. Cockroaches are somewhat generalized insects lacking special adaptations (such as the sucking mouthparts of aphids and other true bugs); they have chewing mouthparts and are probably among the most primitive of living Neopteran insects. They are common and hardy insects capable of tolerating a wide range of climates, from Arctic cold to tropical heat. Tropical cockroaches are often much larger than temperate species.
Modern cockroaches are not considered to be a monophyletic group, as it has been found based on genetics that termites are deeply nested within the group, with some groups of cockroaches more closely related to termites than they are to other cockroaches, thus rendering Blattaria paraphyletic. Both cockroaches and termites are included into Blattodea.
Read more, here.
Jeff Verges/Owner/Operator
742 Santa Anita Court
Eugene, OR 97401
541-688-0580 Eugene
503-371-8373 Salem
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