By Rebecca and Sharifa.

Ice bugs are found on top of cold mountains, in some forests and sometimes in caves near snowfields. They live at levels of 656 to 10,499 feet (200 to 3,200 metres). They are only active when the temperature is cold and are also known as rock crawlers because some of them live under rocks. They usually die when the temperature gets over 10 degrees Celsius.

Icebugs are wingless insects that have antennae that grow up to segments long. They can grow up to roughly 1.2 inches long, have a small skinny body and also have biting mouth parts. Icebugs are yellowish-brown in colour and are know as grylloblattodea, ‘gryll’ meaning cricket and ‘ blatta’ meaning cockroach because of the cricket and cockroach like features the icebug has.

Icebugs lay their black eggs one at a time on or in soil, rotten wood or under leaves and stones. The eggs hatch within a few months or up to three years. The adult icebug lives up to at least one year old. The females lay their eggs when they are around one year old. They take several years to complete a single generation.

Icebugs eat dead plants and animals, including insects but the adult icebug mostly eat small dead insects. Some icebugs look for food on the surface of the snow. The larvae of the icebug can survive without food for three to six months. Icebugs eat: Plants Dying/dead insects Spiders

Icebugs live in Japan, Korea, China, north and western America, Canada, the U.S.A and Russia. Icebugs were first discovered in 1906 but the first time the order was officially described was in 1915 and up until now only 25 species of icebugs have been identified. Icebugs, being the second smallest order of insects so far discovered, have never been found in the southern hemisphere.

Icebugs have no known economical importance and are not harmful or beneficial to humans because of that and the fact that they live in places not inhabited by humans. However, they can be harmful to insects because they eat other insects and spiders.

Icebugs are omnivores who eat not just plants and insects, but spiders as well. These rare to find insects grow slowly due to the cold temperature they live in. Their habitat isn't shared with many other insects. These insects are poorly known and were first thought to be related to crickets and grasshoppers. Other names for icebugs: Rock crawlers Grylloblattodea Ice crawlers

Thank-you for watching our powerpoint presentation on icebugs, we hope you learnt heaps of facts about icebugs!!!!!!