Bugs About All groups Centipedes are predators that eat other arthropods Some of them even have venomous bites Millipedes tend to eat plants The groups have different leg shapes Centipede feet are long and lie flat against the ground They have one pair of legs per body segment Millipede feet point downward They have two pairs of legs per body segment Scientists estimate that there are around 8,000 species of centipedes However they believe there are more than 80,000 species of millipedes Insects are the largest category of arthropods There are one million known species of insects The total number might be much higher up to 30 million Insects make up almost 90 percent of all animal life on Earth Insects include beetles butterflies ants and many more Though insects come in many shapes and sizes most of them have some basic anatomy in common They have three parts to their bodies They each have a head a thorax in the middle and an abdomen at the end They have six legs Many have antennae Luna moths and other moth species are all types of insects 6
on top of their heads and most of them have wings One thing all of these animals have in common is that they don’t have bones They are invertebrates Instead of a skeleton on the inside arthropods have exoskeletons An exoskeleton is made up of a hard material called chitin It works like armor But the exoskeleton cannot grow with the creature In order to grow larger an arthropod must molt or shed its exoskeleton Some juvenile insects look very different from their adult forms For instance the monarch caterpillar transforms into the monarch butterfly Insects arachnids centipedes and millipedes can be pests Some may spread diseases and destroy crops However arthropods also play crucial roles in producing food and pollinating flowers Some eat weeds Others eat all sorts of dead things which helps keep the environment clean These creatures are essential parts of the world Honeybees play important roles as pollinators 7
American Cockroach Periplaneta americana American cockroaches tend to live in humid or moist areas American cockroaches are the most common cockroach species in the world They are reddish brown in color They can live for almost three years growing to about 1.5 inches 3.8 cm long They have wings that cover their entire backs The wings of male cockroaches extend past their abdomens making them slightly larger than females An American cockroach 8 Insects
molts between six and 14 times before it grows to its full size It lives in dark moist areas such as basements and sewers Some cockroach species have survived for more than 300 million years Part of their success is their diet They eat a variety of foods including decaying plant material They also eat paper and leather boots Fact Box Range Worldwide Habitat Moist dark places such as basements or sewers Diet Paper leather organic matter American cockroaches like other cockroach species use their antennae to smell 9
