Insect Modeling

SCIENCE CONCEPT:

The shapes of insects is fascinating. There are many wonderful features about insects that give them their abilities in flight and survival. Without these unique features insects would not be flourishing. Every year hundreds of new species are discovered.

STUDENT OBJECTIVE:

The students will be modeling insects to understand in greater measure their ability to flourish. The bodily structure of insects is unique among the animal kingdom and the variety is spectacular.

OVERVIEW:

An adult insect wears its skeleton outside its body in the form of a hard outer coat. This tough shell is light enough not to prevent the insect from flying. The skeleton also acts like a raincoat and keeps water from soaking into the body. It keeps the body from losing water. It helps the insect live and fly through long dry or rainy spells. It also protects the insect from some of its enemies.

PREPARATION TIME:

20 minutes.

LESSON TIME:

30 minutes.

TEACHER PREP:

Gather books at the library with large colored pictures of insects.

WORDS TO KNOW:

thorax(chest)

abdomen

antennae

locomotion

skeleton

tough

shell

muscles

identify

classify

order

horizontal

TEACHER TEXT:

The body of an adult insect has 3 main parts - the head, the thorax (chest) and the abdomen. Almost all adult insects have a pair of feelers or antennae, at the front of the head. Every adult insect has six legs and most of them have one or two pairs of wings. The thorax is the locomotion center. It is packed with powerful muscles which operate the insect's 6 legs as well as its wings.

Insects were the first creatures to develop wings. Wings are so fundamental to insect-hood that they are not mere modified limbs, like bat or bird wings, but part of the insect's back. Their wings are a basic structure of its external skeleton, delicately strutted with passages for air and blood.

Originally, all winged insects had four separate wings as do all dragonflies today. But the fore and aft pairs of more recent types generally function as single flight surfaces, responding to the feel of moving air through the wonderful sail-setting of specialized flight muscles, and held together by ingenious devices such as the zippers on the wings of a wasp.

Wings are important in identifying and classifying insects as there is no other set of structures in studying insects more significant. Each order and insect family has distinctive wing shapes and features. In many cases, even species may be distinguished from each other by differences of color and pattern on the wings.

Most insects fold their wings when at rest. But dragonflies and some damselflies rest with their wings spread out horizontally. Some moths such as the caddisflies, stoneflies, alder flies, and lacewings(ladybugs) hold their wings sloped rooflike over their backs. A few moths wrap their wings around their bodies. Many flies and most butterflies close their wings together straight upward over the back.

Many insects can hover in one place as a helicopter does. Some expert insect fliers that often hover in one position such as dragonflies, sphinx moths, bee flies, and flower flies. Wasps and bees often hover as well when seeking prey or in front of a flower. These same insects can even fly backwards for short distances.

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Last modified: Sat Nov 15 13:07:03 PST 1997