kirchersociety.org

The University of Florida Department of Entomology and Nematology has taken a scientific approach to cataloguing the longest, biggest, strongest, shortest, fastest, and brightest of the order Insecta in the Book of Insect Records.

Some highlights:

** The extensively cultivated insect, Apis mellifera is judged to have the most spectacular mating because a “comet” of drones pursues the female with the winner forfeiting a portion of his phallus at the end of coitus and dying soon thereafter.

** The desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria migrated westward across the Atlantic ocean 4500 km during the fall of 1988.

** The same species of desert locus forms the largest swarms. In early 1954, a swarm that invaded Kenya covered an area of 200 km². The estimated density was 50 million individuals per km² giving a total number of 10 billion locusts in that swarm.?

** The shortest adult reproductive life belongs to the female of the mayfly Dolania americana (Ephemeroptera) which lives for less than five minutes after its final molt. During this brief window, the insect mates and lays her eggs.

** A queen ant Lasius niger (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) has the longest recorded adult life of any insect: 28 3/4 years in captivity.?

** Using any criterion of measurement, certain walking sticks (order Phasmida) are the longest insects on earth. Of the phasmids, the champion is a female Pharnacia serratipes that measured 555 mm (nearly 22 inches) from extended fore tarsi to extended rear tarsi [shown at right].? ?

This entry was posted on Monday, June 19th, 2006 at 11:44 am and is filed under insects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.