Insects

Insects are invertebrates. This means they have no backbones. Animals with backbones are called vertebrates. About 90% of all animals are invertebrates. Instead of a skeleton inside the body like vertebrates have, invertebrates have an exo-skeleton, which is a hard outside and a soft inside.

Other invertebrates include snails, squid, spiders, jellyfish.

Insects belong to a very large group of animals called arthropods, which means 'jointed legs'. Arthropods include spiders, crayfish, centipedes and most insects.

There are many different groups of insects, but they do have some things in common:

Their bodies have 3 sections: head, thorax and abdomen.
They have 6 legs, 3 on each side of the thorax.
They have antennae.
They have jaws (mandibles) to help them eat.

Insect groups are:
Ants, bees and wasps	Flies
Praying Mantises	Stick and leaf insects (phasmids)
Butterflies and Moths	Beetles (including ladybirds)
Cicadas, hoppers and aphids	Cockroaches
Grasshoppers and crickets	Dragonflies and damselflies
True bugs	Lacewings and antlions
Mayflies

If you use any part of this in your own work, acknowledge the source in your bibliography like this:
Thomas, R. & Sydenham, S. Insects [online] www.kidcyber.com.au (2007)

Other animal groups: