How many insects are there in the world? Insects are, without a doubt, the most abundant group of living beings on Earth ; Not surprisingly, there are more than a million species described by science (and many yet to be discovered). This number will probably amount to several million species in the future as we discover these new species (something that we have already seen happens frequently).
The Royal Entomological Society of London, United Kingdom (founded in 1833), an organization dedicated to the study of insects and the dissemination of information about them, carried out a study by which they calculated that there are about 10,000 million on the earth’s surface of insects per square kilometer.
In Spain it is estimated that the number of existing insect species amounts to 40,000.
The most abundant primitive insects
The most abundant in the world are collembola (probably the most numerous animals on earth -and also of the oldest terrestrial animals-, since we can find up to 62,000 insects per square meter), proturons (small and hardly observable insects, of which are known about 500 species), the dipluros (frequent arthropods of the soil biota that receive this name that means ‘double tail’ because of two fences located at the end of their body; of these hexapod arthropods, about 800 species are known ), the archaeognaths or copperfish (primitive insects of elongated shape, with three ‘tails’ at the extremity of the abdomen and a body covered by scales with metallic reflections, of which there are about 350 species) and the silverfish (trace or sardineta, an agile insect that flees from the light and its name derives from the metallic gray shine of its body -as with the archaeognaths-; these little silver fish feed on raw vegetables such as mold, paper, paper, cardboard or book binding glue).
The most abundant insects (with complete metamorphosis)
Beetles ( Coleoptera ), Bees, Wasps, Ants ( Hymenoptera ), Butterflies, Moths ( Lepidoptera ), Flies, Mosquitoes ( Diptera ) and Hemiptera (including aphids, cicadas and bed bugs) are, in order from highest to lowest, the most abundant insects on our planet.
Curiosity
Mosquitoes – which are so annoying to us and they transmit so many diseases because they are the most dangerous invasive species in the world – occupy the entire planet, except Antarctica.
