THEME STUFF

Bug Facts:
Alice, CS RT Commissioner
Pioneer District, Golden Empire Council

• If you gathered together all the world's bugs in one place and weighed them, those bugs would weigh more than the entire world's people and animals put together!
• If you gathered together in one place all the world's ants, it would take a long time to count them -- all ten thousand trillion of them!
• Dragonflies can fly forward and backwards, as fast as 30 miles per hour!
• Leaf cutting ants don’t eat the leaves – they carry them back to the nest and make compost heaps on which a special fungus that they DO eat grows!
• A grasshopper can jump 20 times its own length!
• Cockroaches are the most ancient of all insects – fossils have been found from 350 million years ago!
• Grasshopper ears are on their front legs!
• Spiders and scorpions are not insects – they are arachnids.
• Ticks and mites are true bugs.
• You can tell butterflies from moths by looking at their antennae – moths have “fuzzy” ones, butterflies have smooth ones – and butterflies are generally day fliers, while moths like to fly at night.

Bug me while I’m Eating:

Did you know that in some parts of the world insects are an important part of people's diets?  Insect eaters say that termites taste like pineapple and bees have a nutty flavor. Check out some comparisons of the nutritional value of insects vs. “regular” food at www.educationworld.com  sponsored by the University of Kentucky.

Mosquito Facts f
West Valley Mosquito & Vector Control Project
http://www.wvmosquito.org

• Largest group of insects, with a quarter of a million different species!
• Found even in polar climates
• One lives in the Namib Desert in Africa and survives by drinking the dew that condenses on its own body!
• They have a double set of wings – usually, the front pair of wings are thick and hard and act as a cover for the back wings.

Honeybees:

• Male honeybees are only in the hive at certain times of the year.
• Only the Queen Honeybee survives the Winter!
• More great bee facts  in “Tales from the Hive” from a PBS special – go to http://www.pbs.org/wgby/nova/bees  for a great 3D anatomy of a hive, interactive “You Be the Bee” and lots of information about their dances

Check other website listings for more bug facts – or just look under specific types of bugs in your Search engine

Did You Know?
Trapper Trails Council

• There are more than 12,000 different varieties of ants in the world.
• The leaves of a Venus flytrap can close over an insect in less than half a second.
• The roundworm lives for only 12 days; the lake sturgeon (a fish) can live more than 150 years.
• Crickets have hearing organs in their knees.
• An ant can lift 50 times its own weight-with its mouth.
• The common snail has close to 10,000 teeth--all on its tongue.
• A frog must close its eyes in order to swallow.
• Texas horned toads can squirt blood from the corners of their eyes.
• The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head without moving any part of its body.
• Scientists have determined that the common housefly hums in the musical key of F.
• To make one pound of honey, bees must collect nectar from approximately 2 million flowers.
• A mosquito has 47 teeth.
• Australian tree frogs give off a chemical that helps heal sores when it’s put on human skin. Doctors expect to find lots of other ways the chemical can be used.
• Blink your eyes. That’s how long it takes a scorpion to stab its stinger into prey and squirt its poison. Sometimes when a scorpion is threatened, it sprays poison several feet into the air.
• Sea spiders bodies have very little room inside them, so their intestines are in their legs.
• Each big eye on a dragonfly is made up of many little eyes--up to 28,000 of them! Dragonflies can spy moving objects up to 40 feet (12 m) away.
• One kind of termite queen can lay more than 86,000 eggs every day!
• The deadliest animal in the world is the mosquito. Mosquitoes carry diseases such as malaria that may kill more than a million people each year.
• Honeybees make a total of 10 million trips between their hive and flowers for each pound (450 g of honey they make.)
• Some bats can eat 500 mosquitoes every hour.
• An elephant may use a leafy branch or plant stalk as a fly swatter.
• The world’s smallest mammal is probably the bumblebee bat of Thailand. The little creature is about the size of a large bumblebee, and it weighs less than a penny.
• Cockroaches can go without eating for three months, as long as they have water. And they can eat many different foods, including your peanut butter sandwich, your fingernail clippings, and especially your math book (they like the glue in the binding).