Animal Facts About Insects

Termites produce an estimated 9-15 million tons of methane annually, making them one of nature's most significant greenhouse gas producers despite their tiny size.

In Brazil, louse cockroaches (Nocticola species) have been documented crawling on sleeping children's faces to feed on secretions around their eyes and eyelashes.

Ants have graveyards.

The animal responsible for the most human deaths worldwide is the mosquito.

Cockroaches can live for 9 days after their head has been cut off.

Honey bees fly at 15 miles per hour.

Ants have two stomachs - one holds food for themselves, and the other is a 'social stomach' used to share food with other ants through regurgitation.

Ants began farming about 50 million years before humans thought to raise their own crops.

The katydid bug hears through small oval openings in its front legs!

An ant brain has about 250,000 neurons. A human brain has around 86 billion—roughly 344,000 times more. Yet scientists study ant colonies as 'superorganisms' where collective behavior emerges from simple individual interactions, similar to how consciousness emerges from billions of neurons in our brains.

The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head!

Termites work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Unlike most insects, termite colonies never stop working—they operate in continuous shifts around the clock.

There are more insects in one square mile of rural land than there are human beings in the world.

The male gypsy moth can "smell" the virgin female gypsy moth from 1.8 miles away!

Mosquitoes prefer children to adults, blondes to brunettes.

Only female bees work.

The average housefly lives for about 15 to 30 days.

The flea can jump 160 times its body length horizontally, which is like a human jumping the length of 2 football fields.

A queen bee primarily uses her smooth, unbarbed stinger to eliminate rival queen bees, allowing her to sting multiple times without dying.

7,000 new insect species are discovered every year.