HowExpert Guide to Insects

Explore alder flies, antlions, aphids, and assassin bugs, unveiling their life cycles from aquatic larvae to predators, including parthenogenesis, honeydew exchange, and adaptive hunting strategies.

Bagworms form protective cases from silk and plant material, feed on leaves, and metamorphose inside. Baldfaced hornets build nests from chewed wood and saliva in colonies.

Explore caddis flies, carpenter bees, cockroaches, crickets, and cicadas, detailing aquatic larvae, portable casings, wood nests, nocturnal chirping, and periodical mass emergences.

Explore death's head hawk moths' skull markings and underground pupation, devil's flower mantises' camouflage and ambush, Dobson flies' large mandibles, and dragonflies' aerial agility and mating behaviors.

Explore earwigs’ flat bodies, pincers, crevice hiding, and the brain-eating myth. Describe elephant hawk moths’ night color vision, elephant-trunk caterpillars, hovering adults, and click beetles’ peg-and-groove launch.

Explore fungus bugs that feed on fungus and blend with bark, fleas that jump between hosts spreading diseases, and fireflies, fire brats, and foam-producing frog hopper nymphs.

Explore giant water bugs as underwater predators, goliath beetles with horns and bold markings, golden tortoise beetles' color shifts, gossamer-winged butterflies' ant relationships, and grasshopper swarms.

Explore heel walkers, Hercules beetles, honey ants, horn tails, hover flies, and hummingbird moths, highlighting their unique adaptations, behaviors, and ecological roles.

Explore ice bugs, extremophiles at high elevations near ice sheets now endangered by warming; inchworms move by extending and folding with camouflage, while planthoppers use leg gears for precise leaps.

Explore Jerusalem cricket, jewel caterpillars, and jumping bristle tails: not crickets from Jerusalem, nocturnal sounds, glassy gelatinous spines for defense, and silk-based mating in moist habitats.

Explore Kubota mushi, katydids, and kermesse insects, highlighting rhinoceros beetles with horned male displays, leaf camouflage, nuptial gifts, and the crimson dye derived from kermesse.

Explore the diverse insect roles in chapter 12: ladybugs as predators and pests, leafcutter ants that cultivate fungus, leaf insects' camouflage, longhorned beetle antennae, lice, and luna moths.

Discover monarch butterflies, milkweed diet with toxin defense, and habitat loss affecting migration. Learn mosquitoes as disease vectors and control strategies, plus morning cloak butterfly territorial behavior.

Explore net winged beetles with translucent, pane-divided wings and toxic coloring, and examine northern corn rootworms as crop pests tied to crop rotation, plus Norway maple aphids' unique role.

Explore the orchid mantis, a flower-mantis that blends with orchid petals to ambush prey, while night-active moths called cut worms threaten crops, and owl flies ambush prey by mimicking twigs.

Investigate painted lady butterflies, their continuous mating, migratory behavior, and distinctive wing patterns. Examine planthoppers' waxy camouflage, potter wasp nests, and mantis ambush tactics.

explore quince treehoppers, relatives of cicadas and plant hoppers, with helmet-like thorax growths that may act as an extra wing, and observe the question mark butterfly's camouflage.

Explore chapter 18’s insects: red bugs that harm cotton crops, horned rhinoceros beetles, neon rosy maple moths, and rove beetles with long abdomens.

Explore Saturnian moths, among the largest, with wings and limited flight, and survey sacred scarabs, scorpion flies, shield backed bugs, silkworms, stag beetles, stalk eyed flies, and stick insects.

Tarantula hawks paralyze tarantulas and lay eggs on them; termites form complex colonies, while tiger swallowtails, titan beetles, toad bugs, and tongue-eating lice show diverse life cycles.

Explore the unique headed bug, noting its singular head, bare wings, a neck that narrows before the eyes, a constricting head ending in a jointed beak, flanked by hairy antennas.

Explore blood-sucking vampire moths with leaf-like camouflage, the painful sting of velvet ants, and Mulwaree and Bayesian mimicry among viceroys and monarchs, plus vine borer moths that bore squash stems.

Discover whirligig beetles that spin on water and water striders that skate the surface, then explore weevils, weta, whiteflies, and white witch moths, including parthenogenesis.

Highlight Zeus's blue butterfly extinction in San Francisco in the 1940s, caused by human habitat development and caterpillars depending on a plant that could not survive the change.

Explore why yellow jackets are wasps mistaken for honeybees, their colony life and multi-sting behavior, and how yellow mealworms, darkling beetle larvae, become adults in as little as three days.

Chapter 26 highlights wingless, eyeless Zurab Turin's, known as angel insects, forming colonies, feeding on rotting wood and fungus, that do not metamorphose and produce winged, eyed offspring to relocate.

Explore bedbugs, cuckoo wasps, driver ants, Picasso moths, and Queen Alexandra's Birdwing butterflies, highlighting parasitism, large colonies, distinctive markings, and conservation concerns.

Explore core insect traits, from arthropods with exoskeletons to three-part bodies and six legs, and learn about sexual dimorphism and warning coloration.

Explore the top 10 insect facts, including global distribution, unique respiration, lifespans, parthenogenesis, hemel lymph, wings unfurling, spaceflight milestones, beekeeping, and social altruism.

Meet Clinton Waters, a freelance writer and bug aficionado who crafts sci fi and fantasy stories featuring insects, and learn how HowExpert publishes quick how-to guides.