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Summer has officially arrived and along with it came the singing, chirping, clicking and calling of the many types of insects.
The high-pitched calls of katydids, grasshoppers, crickets and cicadas coming from the trees, shrubs, fields, woodlands and even inside our homes are all sounds of summer and early fall.
Have you ever wondered why the creator made insects, especially the ones that cause us problems? Usually when the word insect is mentioned we think of it as a nuisance. There are insects that destroy our crops, cause plagues, enter our homes and spread diseases, however, there are good insects that pollinate our plants and those that are food for fish and a multitude of birds, which add much cheer to our lives with their colors and song.
Imagine a June night without fireflies and the chirps of early crickets; the flash of a butterfly's wings on a summer day; and a day in August day without the hum of the cicadas and Katydids.
Insects are more numerous in species than all other living creatures combined. Insects are found everywhere, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, miles high in the sky and far out to sea. Insects have been sharing the planet with humans for thousands of years. Nearly 100,000 species of insects live in North America alone.
Most people hardly notice the millions of insects around them and know little about the value of their work. Perhaps insects are unimportant to man because they are so small. Although for the most part insects are unobserved by us. Each species carries on a separate life, it's coming and going, its building and fighting, its birth, growing and dying. The insect is a part of an infinite detail of a greater plan of which humans are a part of.
Insects are in the phylum Arthropodae, and their scientific name is insecta or hexapoda. Of these two scientific names used for insects in general, insecta means cut into or sliced animals, which is a reference to the segmented bodies of the insects.
Hexapoda means six-footed animal. Since counting the legs is the easiest way to tell insects apart from distant relatives, such as spiders (with eight legs), hexapoda seems to be the more useful name.
Insects are primarily land animals, which is a trait shared with the higher vertebrates such as birds, reptiles and mammals. Insects that live in water descended from land-dwelling ancestors. Water animals can drift with the current or remain anchored while the current brings them food and other needs.
Unlike land insects, water insects need not be tolerant of changes in temperature and light intensity.
While the skeleton bones of vertebrates are inside, the insect's skeleton is outside in the form of a shell of horny or leathery plates, with flexible joints in between. This armorlike skin not only supports the body but allows it to move freely. The insect's muscles are attached to the inside of its skeleton. The skin usually keeps water in as well, and some insects that live in wet places have water-permeable skin.
Insects are much stronger than humans in comparison to the relative sizes of the insect and of people. With humans being so much heavier, we must use most of our strength to carry ourselves. The remarkable strength of the insect's muscles is the rapidity with which it can contract. Some tiny flies can beat their wings 1,000 times a second.
The outer skin of an insect is called chitin, which is a non-living secretion of the living epidermal cells beneath. While the shell of chitin does not grow, the insect continues to grow. When the shell becomes too tight, the epidermal cells secrete a fluid that dissolves the inner part of the non-living material. Then a new layer of chitin is excreted.
As the epidermal cells grow and divide, the living part of the skin becomes larger, making the new layer of chitin larger. The new chitin is full of tiny wrinkles, enabling it to fit inside the smaller and older layer. The insect will swallow a lot of air, or water if it is an aquatic insect, and inflate itself like a balloon. The outer chitin splits and the insect wiggles out.
At times, the insect must stay inflated for hours to keep its new shell stretched tightly until hardening.
The number of times an insect goes through a molt varies with species. The interval between these molts is known as an instar. Some insects have only three instars, while others will require 20 or more.
Because of this molt, insects have the capability to regenerate a lost leg or other appendage. If an insect loses a leg, a new one will grow during the next molt. Although the new leg will be smaller than normal, it will become larger with each molt. However, if an adult insect loses a leg, it is a permanent loss because an adult insect does not molt.
So, why did God create the insects that give us problems? The Bible has the answer. God has not revealed all of life's mysteries. In Ecclesiastics 3:11, it states: "He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end."
Bill Bower is a retired Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Officer. Read his blog and listen to his podcasts on the outdoors at www.onemaningreen.com.