What is the difference between bugs and insects

They use their stylets to suck fluid from plants though some do feed on animals. While butterflies and honeybees also have straw-like mouthparts, the mouths of true bugs are a little bit different.

Instead of being retractable, the mouthpart of a true bug is rigid and cannot be rolled up. True bugs include aphids , stink bugs, water bugs and bed bugs. By the technical, or taxonomic, definition, a large group of insects are not bugs, even though we call them bugs. Beetles , ants , moths , cockroaches, bees, flies, and mosquitoes are not considered true bugs since they are not found in order Hemiptera. Instead, these creepy crawlies are found in order Hymenoptera.

Members of this order have different characteristics than their true bug counterparts. Read on, my little elves. In classic biology taxonomy, all insects belong to a class called Insecta : six-legged organisms with three-part bodies , jointed legs , two antennae , and compound eyes visual organs made up of many visual units clustered together, all with their own corneas and lenses. Insecta falls within the phylum Arthropoda: cold-blooded creatures with an exoskeleton and no backbone.

Some example of true bugs include beetles, stink bugs, and cicadas. There are a few characteristics that distinguish bugs from other insects: Most bugs have a straw-shaped mouth, or stylet, that they use to either sap juice from plants or blood from animals. They also tend to have long, segmented antennae and wings that are tough and dark where they meet the body and are thin and translucent at the ends.

True bugs include stink bugs, bed bugs, water striders, and cicadas. Confusingly, some insects with bug in their name aren't actually true bugs, like ladybugs and June bugs they're both beetles. When viewed from a linguistic perspective, the line between bugs and insects gets fuzzy.

A: If you are talking about the number of different kinds of insects in the world, Erik J. That means you could spend your whole life looking at different kinds of insects and never see them all. Q: Why do insects like light? A: No one really knows. Most scientists think that bright lights confuse the insects'guidance systems so they can't fly straight any more. Q: Why do insects have six legs instead of five or seven?

A: One can get around efficiently on six legs. It is harder if you use five, because that's an odd number. You would have one leg stuck in the air while the others are running, or going down all by itself. If you have a chance, watch an insect walking and pay attention to how it uses its legs. Put another way, think how much more difficult it would be for you to walk if you had three legs! Q: Why do insects have three parts to their bodies? A: That's a difficult question to answer.

Maybe we can turn it around and ask, why don't you have three parts to your body? Or why don't you have a hard shell instead of soft skin? The answer is, no one knows.

That is the way things have happened. We call animals with certain characteristics, like three main body parts, antennae, spiracles, etc.

Q: Do insects have blood and do they bleed when they are hurt? A: Insects have blood, but it's not like our blood. Our blood is red because it has hemoglobin, which is used to carry oxygen to where it is needed in the body. Insects get oxygen from a complex system of air tubes that connect to the outside through openings called spiracles.

So instead of carrying oxygen, their blood carries nutrients from one part of the body to another. They do bleed when they are hurt, and their blood can clot so they can recover from minor wounds.

Q: Why do insects drown in water? A: Not all insects drown in water. In fact, quite a few live there for at least part of their lives. Insects breathe through holes in the sides of their bodies.