(#6) Mosquitoes Kill More People Every Year Than Humans Do
While spiders, snakes, and other sinister predators are some of the scariest animals in the world, they are far from the deadliest. That title belongs to the mosquito. Mosquitoes end the lives of more people than any other animal on Earth, with up to 725,000 victims annually. To put that in perspective, annual human slayings come in at about 475,000.
This is largely because mosquitoes carry all sorts of diseases: Malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, encephalitis, and the Zika virus are just a few examples. Malaria alone takes the lives of 600,000 people annually, leading some to suggest we focus on wiping out the pesky things for good.
(#9) The 10 Quintillion Insects Alive Worldwide Outweigh Human Life
Roughly 1 million species of insect have been discovered by science - more than any other group of animals - but some estimates suggest there are up to 30 million species still waiting to be discovered. There are about 10 quintillion insects alive at any given moment, dwarfing humans in total mass.
If we compare our mass with the total mass of all insects, it's not even close: Insects weigh about 17 times more than humankind.
(#5) If You Were In A Subway Station With A Madagascar Hissing Cockroach, Its Hissing Could Be Mistaken For An Oncoming Train
Cockroaches are pretty much universally loathed - the kings of the gross bug world - and Madagascar hissing cockroaches are a step above the rest. These giant roaches are named after the hissing sound they make when they feel threatened. It's not only an awful noise, but a dangerously loud one as well.
The hiss can be as loud as 90 decibels by some estimates, which is as loud as a moving subway. Sounds greater than 85 dB are considered harmful to the human ear.
(#10) Humans Have Used Insects As Tools During Armed Conflicts
Human civilizations have tried to weaponize bugs countless times in the past, with varying degrees of success. Insects have been so common in armed conflicts that entomologists broke their usage into three distinct groups: insects as tools, insects as disease carriers, and insects as crop destroyers.
In the Second Parthian War, scorpions and disease-causing beetles were lobbed at the opposing Roman army, poisoning their troops and causing scarring skin lesions. The United States was accused of using insects in the Vietnam War to cause crop failure, and some societies have even launched plague-carrying insects into enemy territory. The use of insects as tools of armed conflict is also advancing into the 21st century with a potential fourth category of insect warfare. The study of insects is being increasingly used in advanced military technology, including drones and genetic warfare.
(#2) If You're A Regular Coffee Drinker, You Might Drink 130,000+ Insect Parts A Year
Everyone's heard the myth about people accidentally eating spiders in their sleep, but you don't have to be unconscious to accidentally eat a bug. Insects are pretty much a part of our daily diet. The FDA has a legal allowance of how many bugs can end up in your food before it's a problem.
For example, regular coffee drinkers are legally allowed to ingest as many as 136,000 insect parts every year. If you consume any products made from wheat flour, you're eating as many as 91,000 insect parts annually.
(#8) Ants Are Smart Enough To Engage In Organized Conflict, And They're Shockingly Human About It
Ants are among the few insects to engage in organized conflict, setting armies against armies in a fight to the end. There are roughly 10,000 species of ants, and each one goes about clashes in its own unique way.
Ant conflicts can be as barbaric as ours: Cannibalism, looting, and executions are all commonly practiced among ants. Army ants fight in a way similar to the ancient Roman legions. Some species use tactical deception to make themselves appear more powerful than their enemies, and weaker ants are used as cannon fodder on the front lines.
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About This Tool
It is obvious that bugs are not particularly popular bugs, but this does not mean that they are not interesting insects. Bugs are really smelly, when a bug is threatened, it releases irritating substances from special glands, repelling almost any predator with a sense of smell. They are very small and difficult to capture, and they like to live on the bed plank or mattress, so it is necessary to clean the bed regularly.
Would you mind take a few minutes to learn more about their natural history and abnormal behavior? The random tool introduced 12 creepy facts about bugs that almost nobody would like to know.
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