Fun Insect Facts

A cockroach can live for nine days without its head.

Dragonflies can fly at speeds up to 30 miles per hour.

The color a head louse will be as an adult can depend on the color of the person's hair in which it lives.

The cochineal insect, which lives on the prickly pear cactus in the southwestern United States, is an excellent source of natural red dye. The insects are dried and ground into a powder that is cooked to release the maximum amount of color. The powder is then used as a dye for fiber, fabric, and basketry materials. It has also been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in food and cosmetics. Most brands of lipstick and some kinds of fruit drinks are tinted with cochineal extract.

In the 1960s, animal behavior researchers studied the effects of various substances on spiders. When spiders were fed flies that had been injected with caffeine, they spun very "nervous" webs. When spiders ate flies injected with LSD, they spun webs with wild, abstract patterns. Spiders that were given sedatives fell asleep before completing their webs.

The bombadier beetle defends itself by firing a boiling hot spray from the rear of its abdomen. The spray is formed at the moment of firing by mixing chemicals from two glands in the beetle's abdomen. The spray changes instantly into a gas and is directed away from the beetle. The gas irritates the eyes of the enemy and forms a smoke screen which helps the beetle to escape while the enemy is confused.