Insect Interest

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Spider Facts

Certain female species of spiders such as the Australian crab spider, sacrifice their bodies as a food source for their offspring.
Some male spiders pluck their cobwebs like a guitar, to attract female spiders.
Fried spiders taste like nuts.
The largest spider ever was the Megarachne which had a diameter of 50 cm. The fossil was found in Argentina.
The bite from a black widow spider is not automatically fatal. In fact, less than 1% of all people bitten by this spider run the risk of dying, and most of them are saved with the use of antivenin.
The skeleton of a spider is located on the outside of the body.
Spiders usually have eight eyes, but still they cannot see that well.
There are about 34,000 species of spiders.
Spiders have claws at the ends of their legs.
Only the female black widow spider has a poisonous bite. The male spider's venom is not poisonous and it does not attack its prey.
Of the 35,000 species of spiders, only 27 species are known to have caused human fatalities.
posted by Animal Addicted at 2:19 AM 0 comments

Monday, March 24, 2008

Ant Facts

Ants don't sleep.
When the only queen ant dies, so does the entire colony, because no new workers are born.
The study of ants is called Myrmecology.
For every human in the world there are one million ants.
The brain of an ant has about 250,000 brain cells.
The sense of smell of an ant is just as good as a dog's is.
Ants can lift an object up to fifty times their body-weight and carry it over their heads. They don't do this with their feet, but with their mouths.
A leaf-cutter ant queen mates only once - just before establishing a new colony. She can then keep the sperm viable for up to 15 years and produce as many as 300 million offspring.
posted by Animal Addicted at 2:19 AM 0 comments

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Cockroach Facts

Scientists have actually performed brain surgery on cockroaches.
German cockroaches can survive for up to one month without food and two weeks without water.
A cockroach can change directions up to 25 times in a second.
If a cockroach breaks a leg it can grow another one.
The earliest fossil cockroach is about 280 million years old – 80 million years older than the first dinosaurs!
Cockroach can live up to nine days without its head.
posted by Animal Addicted at 2:18 AM 0 comments

Friday, March 14, 2008

More Bee Facts

A honey bee strokes its wings about 11,500 times a minute.
Bees can communicate with other bees by dancing. Their dance can alert other bees as to which direction and the distance nectar and pollen is located.
It takes 12 honeybees to make one teaspoon of honey.
In one trip, a honey bee visits about 75 flowers.
In one day, a queen bee can lay up to 1500 eggs in one day.
In a lifetime, on average a honey bee produces 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey.
Honeybees use the sun as a compass which helps them navigate.
A honey bee has four wings.
A bird called the bee eater in areas of Africa thinks that riding around on the backs of other animals is fun!
The honeybee has to travel an average of 43,000 miles to collect enough nectar to make a pound of honey!
posted by Animal Addicted at 2:18 AM 0 comments

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Bee Facts

Bees fly an average of 13-15 mph.
A bee travels an average of 1600 round trips in order to produce one ounce of honey; up to 6 miles per trip. To produce 2 pounds of honey, bees travel a distance equal to 4 times around the earth.
Honeybees visit about 2 million flowers to make one pound of honey.
During honey production periods, a bee's life span is about 6 weeks.
Just a single hive contains approximately 40-45,000 bees!
Honeybees are the only insects that produce food for humans.
About 8 pounds of honey is eaten by bees to produce 1 pound of beeswax.
Beeswax production in most hives is about 1 1/2% to 2% of the total honey yield.
The average hive temperature is 93.5 degrees.
Queens will lay almost 2000 eggs a day at a rate of 5 or 6 a minute. Between 175,000-200,000 eggs are laid per year.
The speed at which honey bees fly is at 15 miles per hour.
The sole purpose of a drone bee is to mate with the queen bee.
Bees from the same hive visit about 225,000 flowers per day. One single bee usually visits between 50-1000 flowers a day, but can visit up to several thousand.
Honeybees have hair on their eyes.
A colony of bees have to fly almost fifty-five thousand miles and tap two million flowers to make one pound of honey.
posted by Animal Addicted at 5:18 AM 0 comments

Sunday, March 2, 2008

More Fly Facts

The lifespan of a firefly is about seven days. During these days, they are busy trying to find a mate.
Out of every 1,000 Mosquitoes, one female carries a disease that could be fatal to humans.
There are more than 2,400 flea species in the world.
There are approximately 2,700 different species of mosquitoes.
The dragonfly has not changed over the last 300 million years.
Some mosquitoes can beat their wings 600 times a second. A midge fly holds the record, with a wing beat of 1046 times a second.
The average housefly lives for one month.
The fastest known insect is a dragon fly that has been clocked at 58 kilometers an hour.
Flies can "taste" with their feet.
posted by Animal Addicted at 2:18 AM 0 comments