Factors that make insect the most successiful animal?

Answer 1

An arthropod is an invertebrate animal having an exoskeleton a segmented body and joined appendages. Arthropod are phylum of Arthropoda(arthods-joind;podas-foot) Arthropods are characterized by their jointed limbs and cuticles, which are mainly made of α-chitin It is so versatile that they have been compared to Swiss Army knives.

Answer 2

Insects are an incredibly successful group, about 90% of all species are insects. About 1 million species of insects are described, but the total number of species is estimated to be between 2.5 and 10 million. To place this in perspective, the number of described chordates (vertebrates, of which we are 1 species) is about 43000. So there are about 20 times as many species of insects as there are chordates, and we are only talking about the number of different species! If we also look at the number of individuals of each species the total number of insects that walk the earth at any time is estimated at 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000). So that are a whole lot of insects!

But why are insects so incredibly successful? There is not one specific reason for their success; multiple factors are involved. One of the proposed reasons is the fact that insects are able to fly. Because they can fly they are very mobile and can easily reach different habitats. Once they reached a different habitat they can adapt to the local circumstances.

A different reason is their co-evolution with plants. Co-evolution means that when one species adapts, a different species (dependent on the adapting species) also adapts. As it is always the case with evolution, we are talking about variation between individuals. For example, if there is a large population of white flowers that are being pollinated by 1 type of butterfly, it is possible that by chance one flower has a mutation by which it start producing red flowers instead of white flowers. If there is also a butterfly, in a population of butterflies that prefers white flowers, which deviates from the rest of the population and prefers red flowers, this red flower and butterfly that prefers red flowers can co-evolve. After multiple generations this could lead to different species, 2 species of plants (with white flowers and with red flowers) and 2 species of butterflies (preference for white flowers and preference for red flowers). This example is illustrated in the figure below; of course the butterfly doesn't have to be red in order for it to prefer red flowers but it I made it red for the illustration. Through this mechanism of co-evolution, the speciation events in plants also led to speciation in insects, so more species of plants means more species of insects.

Answer 3

Because, insects out breed mostly all life and they can take advantage of most things that we use...like wood

Answer 4

Insects are the most successful invertebrates since they do not have a backbone. This is one of the common traits of invertebrates.