Abdomen - The rear section of an insect’s body. It contains the heart, the stomach, and the reproductive organs.
Abiotic – Non-living. Not associated with or derived from living organisms. Abiotic factors in an environment include such items as sunlight, temperature, wind patterns, and precipitation.
Antenna – An insect’s two feelers, used mainly for smelling and touching. They grow from the insect’s heads.
Aspiration - A simple device that is used by entomologists to collect small insects.
Biotic - Of or having to do with life or living organisms. Produced or caused by living organisms.
Cell Membrane- The outer covering of the cell consisting of a lipid bilayer with proteins embedded in it.
Classification - The systematic grouping of organisms into categories on the basis of evolutionary or structural relationships between them.
Complete Metamorphosis - The complete form of metamorphosis in which an insect passes through four separate stages of growth, as embryo, larva, pupa, and imago. Also called holometabolism.
Compound eye- An insect’s compound eye has a number of separate lenses, each of which sees at a slightly different angle. (A human eye has just one lens)
Consumer – An organism that ingests or eats other organisms or organic matter in a food chain.
Decomposer - An organism, often a bacterium or fungus, that feeds on and breaks down dead plant or animal matter, thus making organic nutrients available to the ecosystem.
Drone- A male bee or ant, his only job is to mate with the queen.
Ecosystem - An ecological community together with its environment, functioning as a unit. A system involving the interactions between a community of living organisms in a particular area and its nonliving environment.
Energy Pyramid - A diagram that shows the amount of energy passed on at each level of a food chain. A pyramid-shaped diagram representing quantitatively the numbers of organisms, energy relationships, and biomass of an ecosystem; numbers are high for the lowest trophic levels (plants) and low for the highest trophic level (carnivores).
Entomologist- A scientist who has a special interest in insects.
Exoskeleton- An insect’s skeleton is on the outside of its body (unlike the human skeleton which is underneath the skin) the exoskeleton gives the insect extra protection, just like a suit of armor. Some other animals such as scorpions also have exoskeletons.
Extinction- The complete disappearance of the species of animal or plant from the earth.
Femur- The upper part of an insects leg, It is often the largest section housing powerful jumping muscles.
Food Chain - Food chains are representative of the eating relationships between species within an ecosystem or a particular living place. Many types of food chains or webs are applicable depending on habitat or environmental factors.
Food Web - A series of linked food chains. A network of food chains in an ecosystem.
Galls - Swelling on plants or leaves. They are caused when an insect injects a substance into the plant, which makes part of it swell. Galls provide food and shelter for growing grubs.
Genus - The group of insects to which every individual species belongs.
Golgi Complex- A netlike structure in the cytoplasm of animal cells
Grubs- Young insects, especially beetles that are still developing into adults. They do not look anything like the adult insects.
Habitat- An insect’s natural home. An insect’s habitat may be under stones, on certain leaves or inside the bark of trees
Hive - The place where a colony of bees lives and rears its young.
Honeycomb- The cells inside a beehive where the honey is stored, and where the young bee grubs live. The honeycomb is made out of the beeswax that the worker bees produce in their abdomens.
Lens- A curved section inside an eye that focuses rays of light. The compound eyes of insects may contain many hundreds of separate lenses.
Microscope - An optical instrument consisting of a lens or combination of lenses for making enlarged images of minute objects; especially: COMPOUND MICROSCOPE or a non-optical instrument (as one using radiations other than light or using vibrations) for making enlarged images of minute objects.
Mitosis - Mitosis is a process of cell division which results in the production of two daughter cells from a single parent cell. The daughter cells are identical to one another and to the original parent cell.
Nucleus-
Producers – A green plant that makes its own food (sugar). A photosynthetic green plant or chemosynthetic bacterium, constituting the first trophic level in a food chain; an autotrophic organism.
Ribosomes- Any of numerous minute particles in the cytoplasm of cells, either free or attached to the endoplasmic reticulum, that contain RNA and protein and are the site of protein synthesis
Taxonomy - The classification of organisms in an ordered system that indicates natural relationships. The science, laws, or principles of classification.