Are all insects bugs?
Someone will have to tell this ladybug that it's not really a bug. (Photo: JG D70s)
Are bugs and insects the same thing? What makes a bug a bug?
All bugs are insects, but not all insects are bugs.
Insects are the largest class of animal on Earth. More than 80 percent of all known animal species on Earth are insects! To keep track of all these different kinds of insects, scientists classify them into a wide range of orders, often based on the structure of their wings.
Flies, for example, are in the order Diptera, which means two wings in ancient Greek. But flies aren’t bugs.
Most entomologists agree that the true bugs belong mainly to the order Hemiptera, which means half wing. Bugs usually have two pairs of wings, with the front wings divided into a leathery inner half and a thin, transparent outer half.
But it’s not just the wings that make a bug a bug. It’s also their mouth parts. Whereas grasshoppers chew and butterflies siphon, actual bugs don’t do either. Instead they suck the juice from plants with their tube-like beaks.
So many insects commonly called bugs – even ladybugs and lightning bugs – aren’t truly bugs at all.
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