Open your class notebook to the next available page and label it with today’s date and the title above. Now you are ready to begin.

As you review the remaining slides in the powerpoint, take notes. Pay close attention to the habitat slides. Take notes, including drawing pictures. The questions that you want to answer are “What is an insect?” What does the body of an insect look like?” and “What do insects require in their habitat to survive?”. You will use your learnings to create an insect habitat later this week so be very observant.

 An insect always has 2 antennas and 3 body parts. Most of them have wings and can fly. All insects have 6 or more legs.  Insects belong to a special group called Anthropods.

Insects are the most numerous life form on the planet (in terms of number of species). Approximately seven out of every eight living species are insects. Insects show a number of characteristics, the three by which they are most easily recognized are:- The body is divided into three distinct regions - head, thorax, and abdomen. speciesinsectsheadthoraxabdomen

There are three pairs of walking legs on the thorax, one pair to each segment. The legs show a very characteristic structure, but this is often modified to fulfill a variety of tasks, e.g. swimming or holding of prey. The generalized structure of an insect leg:-

 Respiration  Insects 'breathe' through a system of branching tubes, the trachea. Oxygen and carbon dioxide move along these by a process called diffusion. It is this method of 'breathing' which stops insects from getting very large. The insect body cannot get bigger than a diameter of about three centimeters. Above this size diffusion of oxygen into the body tissues becomes too inefficient for the insect to live. Insects 'breathe'trachea  Vision  The head bears a pair of compound eyes. These consist of a number of individual 'eyes', each of which produces a separate image. Hence the overall picture that the insect sees is made up of a series of dots.compound eyes  Antennae  The antennae (or 'feelers') are mainly organs of smell and taste. They do have other functions in certain insects, e.g. they may be used to detect air currents.antennae

Tarantula Feeding The tarantula's appearance is worse than its bite. Tarantula venom is weaker than that of a honeybee and, though painful, is virtually harmless to humans.

Fireflies have dedicated light organs that are located under their abdomens. The insects take in oxygen and, inside special cells, combine it with a substance called luciferin to produce light with almost no heat. Firefly light flashes in patterns that are unique to each species. Each blinking pattern is an optical signal that helps fireflies find potential mates. Firefly light may also serve as a defense mechanism that flashes a clear warning of the insect's unappetizing taste.

Farmers love them for their appetite. Most ladybugs voraciously consume plant-eating insects, such as aphids, and in doing so they help to protect crops. Ladybugs lay hundreds of eggs in the colonies of aphids and other plant-eating pests. When they hatch, the ladybug larvae immediately begin to feed. By the end of its three-to-six-week life, a ladybug may eat some 5,000 aphids

A habitat is a place where living things live and survive. A habitat has everything that the living thing requires to survive in an environment.