• Skill: Comparisons

Take a peek into the hidden world of bugs. You may be surprised by the things you discover.

Start by clicking the first activity below.

	1.	Before You Read: Those Amazing Bugs
	2.	"A Tale of Two Bugs"
		"A Tale of Two Bugs" Worksheet
	3.	Rate Yourself

Take-Home Activity: Bug Safari

If you don't already have a copy of this activity, click the link above. Then print out the page or copy the instructions.

If big numbers and variety are the true measures of success, then insects and their relatives are the most successful creatures in the world. Arthropoda, the group to which ants, bees, butterflies, crabs, shrimp, spiders, and ticks belong, includes more than one million different species all by itself. That's three times more species than all other types of animals combined!

What do you know about these wildly successful creatures? With your friends, pick one type of arthropod mentioned above or another with which you are familiar. Make a list of all the things you know about it. When you've finished your list, read on for cool facts about bugs!

• In one experiment, a flea was able to jump a distance of 13 inches. That's the same as a human jumping about 700 feet!

• The male emperor moth has the most powerful sense of smell in the world. Its antennae can detect a female moth more than 6.5 miles away.

• In relation to their size, beetles are the strongest animals in the world. A rhinoceros beetle can carry 850 times its body weight on its back. That's the same as a 150-pound human carrying about 17 pickup trucks!

Now read about two bugs that look similar but that are in fact very different. Knowing how these bugs are alike and how they are different can prevent your getting a painful bite.

Now read "A Tale of Two Bugs" and complete the worksheet.

If you don't have a copy of the worksheet, click "A Tale of Two Bugs" Worksheet. Then print out the page or copy the instructions.

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Many bugs, such as spiders, earwigs, and cockroaches, look frightening or harmful. Others, such as ladybugs, butterflies, and ants, don't look quite so threatening. But looks can be deceiving. In the case of centipedes and millipedes, knowing which bug is dangerous and which is not can help you to stay safe.

Centipedes and millipedes are both arthropods. That means they both have jointed legs, segmented bodies, and an outside shell called an exoskeleton. From a distance both centipedes and millipedes look like worms, but with many legs and a pair of antennae on their heads.

Despite these similarities, a closer look shows that millipedes and centipedes differ in many ways. The word millipede means "a thousand feet." In fact, no millipede has a thousand feet. Most segments of a millipede's body have two pairs of legs, and some species have up to 115 pairs of legs (for a total of 230 legs). The word centipede means "a hundred feet." But this arthropod actually has more feet than the name implies. Most segments of a centipede's body have one pair of legs, and some species have as many as 170 pairs of legs (for a total of 340 legs).

Millipedes live in damp, dark places and eat plants, usually dead ones they find rotting on the forest floor. Millipedes are not fighters. When a millipede is disturbed, it will usually coil up. Centipedes, on the other hand, primarily eat snails, slugs, worms, and insects, which they kill with the poison that is in their jaws behind their head. If threatened, a centipede may bite, and some centipedes have a poison that can be harmful to people.

When you finish the "A Tale of Two Bugs" Worksheet, use Rate Yourself to judge how well you did on this Reading Journey.

If you don't have a copy of Rate Yourself, click Rate Yourself. Then print out the page or copy the instructions.

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