![]() Lacewings are a pretty special kind of insect. These special, secondary wings help them tell what direction they’re going and balance! Think about it this way, flies have built-in gyroscopes like the ones in the International Space Station. While these insects actually do have a second pair of wings, called halteres (vestigial wings), 0they are so small you might not be able to see them. Notice that they seem to only have one pair of wings. Your common housefly is a great example of Diptera. There’s a lot of them too, making up as much as a quarter of animal biomass in warm climates! Diptera You might ask, why don’t all ants have wings? Only ants who can reproduce will develop wings, while worker ants remain wingless. Many of these insects have a clearly defined waist between their thorax and abdomen, and all of them have four visible wings that move in two simultaneous pairs. While bees are not the only pollinators working hard, they are some of the most famous. As the weather warms up, see how many you can find. However, these are seven of the most common kinds of insects you’ll see in our national parks and other places. With hundreds of thousands of species to pick from, we couldn’t possibly talk about every single one. In other cases, insects can be used as a biocontrol against other bugs who are causing problems in an ecosystem. Non-native and invasive species can completely reorganize an ecosystem and provide park staff with a constant challenge to properly manage them. They can help keep ecosystems in balance by doing this, but they can also set off high stress periods when an insect species moves from its home range to a new area. Some insects are also key players in the decomposition cycle because they eat plants like trees and fallen leaves. We can thank them for pollinating tons of different plants that keep our air, economy, and stomachs happy. Pollinators are important in wild natural areas, our farming communities, and even urban areas. More than 75 percent of Earth's flowering plants depend on bees and other pollinators to help them develop healthy offspring. Insects do a lot of different jobs in our natural areas. However, there’s a lot more to these creepy crawlies than that. ![]() All three pairs of legs are attached to their thorax. Their bodies are split into the head, then the thorax, then the abdomen. This spring, we invite you to take a closer look at the wild world of insects and all the cool stuff they do! What makes a bug an insect?Īll insects have three-part bodies, some have wings, and they have three pairs of legs. There’s more than 900,000 different species! They’re also some of the greatest ecosystem builders in our national parks, and they often work behind-the-scenes. Mississippi National River and Recreation Areaīugs are the most diverse group of wildlife on the planet. Halloween Pennant dragonflies are common, but beautiful, insects that are often found in mid-summer at Pickerel Lake.
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