Insects belong to a class known as arthropods. What is an
arthropod? The technical definition is:
Any of a phylum (Arthropoda) of invertebrate animals (as insects, arachnids, and crustaceans) that have a segmented body and jointed appendages, a usually chitinous exoskeleton molted at intervals, and a dorsal anterior brain connected to a ventral chain of ganglia.
This website concentrates on insects, though we do sneak in a crustacean, one which might just surprise you. We invite you to study insects,
but as with all forms of arthropods...look and please do not touch.
Attention teachers, parents, students and bug lovers!
There is a PDF link for you to use on each page. Please feel free to use this link to print individual pages for your classroom,
homework, field trips or hobby. To those that wish to link to us, please do and if you are an educational resource we will exchange a
return link.
If you live in or are visiting Illinois, we suggest you visit the Field Museum in Chicago and check out their Entomology Exhibits.
The museum is superb. One of their Entomologists helped tremendously in putting together this site, and also editing the publication upon which
it is based.