A Collection of Insects, Spiders, & Millipedes

Insects have three body segments and six legs. They often have wings such as bees, beetles, butterflies, flies, and mosquitoes and they are all insects, along with millions of other tiny creatures with no spines (invertebrates). Although spiders and millipedes are not insects, I have included them on this page. Spiders and millipedes are in the same phylum of arthropods. Spiders are arachnids having two body segments and eight legs. Millipedes are in the class of myriapods having two legs on multiple body segments. In the world, some 900 thousand different kinds of living insects are known and classified. Most authorities agree that there are many more insect species that have not been categorized by science than have been. Conservative estimates suggest that this figure is 2 million, but estimates extend to 30 million. There are around 700 species of spiders that now inhabit Florida. A single spider eats about 2,000 insects per year. Spiders, as a group, consume more insects than do birds and it has been estimated that a single acre of natural habitat contains well over 10 million spiders. Most are venomous but not dangerous to humans. Spider silk can be stretched up to 40% of its length without breaking. It has the tensile strength of steel, but is less dense. The silk is produced in glands which are connected by tubes to pairs of abdominal spinners. The most common types of millipedes found in Florida are the Yellow-Banded Millipede, the Florida Ivory Millipede, and two species of flat-backed millipede. Although their name implies thousands of feet, most species actually have fewer than a hundred. Millipede bodies are split into a number of segments and each segment has two sets of legs. They lack stingers or pinchers to fend off predators like birds, toads, and small mammals. Instead, they rely on their hard exoskeleton as a first line of defense by curling into a ball. Millipedes feed on living and decomposing vegetation and occasionally on dead snails, earthworms, and insects. (The Smithsonian & National Park Service)