#they are part of city living like it or not
I see a lot of people assume cockroaches are beetles, but just fyi they’re not even close! They don’t have hardened wing cases or a larval stage, and in many respects are more comparable to a cricket, but they aren’t in that group either. Their only direct relatives are preying mantises! Termites were also once considered close to cockroaches, but then it was proven termites just literally are cockroaches.
I like how no matter how many times I mention that termites are roaches or ants are wasps, it’s always new and cool to several people, like isopods and barnacles being crustaceans c:
Here are some other arthropod taxonomies of interest:
- Ticks are just big mites (and therefore also arachnids along with spiders and scorpions)
- Fireflies ARE beetles
- Cicadas are basically very big planthoppers
- Horseshoe crabs are very close to or are actual arachnids
- ALL insects are now thought to be a subgroup of crustaceans
- Velvet worms are the only surviving lobopod, a group you may also know for Anomalocaris
- Butterflies aren’t really a counterpart to moths, just one relatively small moth group that got a little weird.
