How do small ants carry heavy things?

Ants belong to the group of animals which have their skeleton on the outside of their body—the arthropods, not inside like we do. This outside skeleton, called an exoskeleton, is very light and very strong. Exoskeletons are made even stronger due to being in the shape of tubes and ovals like the shape of egg shells—these are shapes which can support a lot of weight. (A plastic straw can support a lot of weight if it does not bend, and eggs resist crushing if the pressure is applied evenly.) Muscles hold the parts of the exoskeleton in such a way that the skeleton supports the weight rather than just the muscles, so for their size they can carry heavy things.

What is the biggest bug in Alberta?

If you mean measuring wing-tip to wing-tip, one or two species of moths in Alberta can have wing spans up to 10 cm across. Caterpillars of a few species of moth can be as long and big around as your father’s largest finger!

Where do bugs go in winter?

The insects that overwinter as adults hide in places like leaf litter, in the holes of animal burrows, in the cracks and crevices of soil and tree bark. Anyplace they can find some shelter and can be hidden. They do not freeze because of antifreeze in their blood and cells. (I have even an adult mosquito frozen inside of an icicle which flew away after the ice melted and the mosquito warmed up!)
Many species of insects overwinter in the egg stage of their life cycle. These were eggs laid at the end of summer in places the mother insect chose so food was close by when the immature insects hatched.

What does a mosquito do with the blood?

Only the female mosquito feeds on blood, and for Alberta mosquitoes this is usually only once or twice in the lifetime of the female mosquito. This blood provides the energy so she can produce and lay eggs so there can be more mosquitoes.

What bugs hatch from eggs?

Almost all bugs or insects are produced from eggs laid by the mother insect. One very interesting exception are the aphids in which the mother aphid holds her eggs inside her, the eggs hatch there one at a time, and a live baby aphid is ‘born’ from the mother aphid rather than laying eggs.

Why do black ants fight with red ants?

Each ant colony protects its home territory so each colony has enough food to keep itself going. So any ant that wanders into the ‘food space’ of another colony of ants is going to be unwelcome and driven out, possibly even killed. Some ant species actually go raiding the colonies of other ant species in order to get food and to capture workers to take home to work in their own nest. This raid usually produces a fight while invading the colony to get pupae to carry back to the home nest.

Why is the queen the biggest ant?

Queen ants produce hundreds, sometimes thousands of eggs per day all summer long. That means she has large ovaries, the organs that produce these eggs. Therefore she will be the largest ant in the colony because in worker ants which are also females, the ovaries are inactive and therefore small, which means the workers will always be smaller than the queen ant of the colony.

Why do bees sting?

Bees, ants and wasps are the kinds of insects that usually have stingers. They use the stingers to discourage enemies that try to get into their nests like ants that try to get into other nests or skunks that try to get into the honey of bees or into wasp nests to eat the comb.

Wasps use their stingers to paralyze the food that they take back to their nests since they are carnivores in addition to being a defensive weapon.

Why do we need bugs?

They are part of the food chains on earth and are food for other insects and for larger birds, animals and fish.

They are important because they help pollinate many kinds of plants.

They are important in helping to break down dead plants and animals so they get recycled by bacteria.

How do fireflies glow?

Have you seen those ‘glow sticks’ which produce a cold light when you bend them? The bending causes two chemicals to mix which produces a reaction that gives off light.

The same thing happens in fireflies except the chemicals are in special glands at the back end of the firefly abdomens where two chemicals are mixed to produce light that shines through special unpigmented portions of the exoskeleton where these glands are located. (In fact that is how we got the idea about how to make ‘glow sticks’ -- we copied the fireflies!)

What is the fuzz on a caterpillar?

Part of the exoskeleton of many insects are small thin ‘hairs’ called setae. There can be a great many setae on the surface of certain caterpillars, making it look like ‘fuzz.’

Setae are different from animal hair because they do not grow, but most are also sensory which means the insect ‘feels’ any seta movement caused by touch or air movements.

Do all caterpillars turn into something else?

Yes, caterpillars are young insects. They grow and molt into larger caterpillars, then molt to become a pupa from which they transform into adult winged butterflies or moths. Fly maggots and mosquito larvae are all doing the same thing. This is one of three or four types of life cycles in insects called complete metamorphosis because of the dramatic change from a larva into an adult flying form of insect.

Do caterpillars bleed? Do they have blood?

Yes, all insects—including caterpillars—have blood and will bleed if their exoskeleton is punctured or broken. The blood in insects is usually not red however, rather it usually is yellowish in color (remember the Maple bug has orange blood). Blood of insects differs from us and other animals in one other way—it flows around inside the body cavity with out being inside veins or arteries, although insects do have a pumping tube shaped heart to help move it around. That is called an “open circulatory system.”

Do they breathe? How?

All animals with exoskeletons, the arthropods, breathe in a couple of ways. First, some air can cross the exoskeleton but that is a very slow process, although the large surface area of arthropods does help this process. Second, most arthropods have breathing pores called spiracles along the sides of their bodies on the thorax (3 pair) and on the abdomen (1 pair per segment) which open into tubes inside the body called trachea which carry air (oxygen) to all of the cells of the body and allow the escape of carbon dioxide. By pumping or telescoping their abdomen, air is moved in and out of these trachea ... the insect is ‘breathing!’

Do spiders share? Do they work together?

Generally, bees, ants and wasps are the only true social insects, having a queen and a large colony of workers which produce a nest or colony which carries over from one year to the next. However, spiders do have a few social characteristics. For example, the mother spider often protects her eggs, in some species that means having all the eggs in a silk bag which the mother spider then carries around with her. In a few species of spiders the mother spider may provide food for her young, and I believe in one or two species of spiders they may produce a social grouping.

How do you tell types of spiders apart?

Telling types of plants or animals apart can be done by all of us, but the specialists who do that kind of work are called taxonomists. In spiders you can tell them apart in various ways:
a. do the spiders spin a web and sit and wait for prey to come to them or are they in the group of spiders which go and hunt for their food and not use a web to catch food

b. if a web spinner, what shape and size of web is produced—the web of each species of web spinning spider is different in shape, size and how it is built

c. how many pairs of eyes does the spider have—the hunting spiders have more pairs of eyes than do the web spinning spiders

d. what special colors or patterns of color are on the body—again a species specific characteristic

e. what special pattern and size of setae are on the body and legs (may need a microscope to see this)
f. many other characteristics will be used as well—the pictures in a spider field guide book (like in a bird guide book) is a good way to see how different spiders look

What happens to the baby spiders after they are hatched?

They seek out food that is appropriate to their size to feed on. Many of course become food for other types of animals that consider them suitable food such as other species of spiders for example. They feed and molt many times in order to grow into a larger sized spider and then feed some more. After five to ten molts they become adult spiders. Only a few of the group of baby spiders produced live to become adults.

Is a daddy longlegs a bug?

No, daddy longlegs have four pairs of legs while insects have three pairs of legs. Plus the body of a daddy longlegs looks like one unit whereas insects have three body parts: a head, a thorax and an abdomen. As a result, daddy longlegs are more similar to spiders than they are to insects.

How big do spiders get?

In Alberta the body of some garden or barn spiders can be as big as your thumb! In the tropics some spiders can be as long as your hand when the legs are stretched out.

How long does it take to spin a web?

Most spiders have to repair or re-spin their web every day. This usually takes less than hour to do, and in many cases can be done is much less than that, depending on the size and complexity of the web.

How does a spider’s web get made?

Spider silk is produced from glands in the abdomen of spiders. The silk is released from these glands as a liquid from openings in the abdomen that are called spinnerets.

Chemical changes in the silk on exposure to air leads to the formation of the silk strands which happens very quickly. Many different kinds of silk strands can be produced by each species of spider: thick strands, thin strands, elastic strands, sticky strands, etc.

Those spiders which spin webs start with a thick strand anchored to a high point, then let out silk as they drop down through the air until they can anchor it to a lower point, then swing across on the lengthening strand to another point, crawl up and complete the outer anchor threads to the web or framework to which the rest of the spokes of the web can be added. Then with the spokes in place, she will start going in a circle, laying down strands from spoke to spoke to fill in the web pattern.

Why doesn’t the spider get stuck in its web?

First, not all strands of a spider web are sticky. Most are not so a spider can run over much of the web without coming in contact with the sticky strands.

Second, spiders have special hairs and claws on their feet that they use to handle the silk, and these are coated with special waxes which prevent the sticky strands from sticking to them.

Third, sticky silk strands are not sticky the whole length of the strand, but rather the sticky material occurs as globs along the length of the strand sort of like beads spread out along the length of a string. I suspect the spider is able to step between the sticky globs and thus avoid getting stuck in their own sticky web strands.