Jessica’s Reviews > Broadsides from the Other Orders: A Book of Bugs > Status Update

Order Orthoptera. (katydids, true crickets, grasshoppers, locusts are among this order) Characterized by a life cycle of incomplete metamorphosis.

From Greek Ortho = straight
ptera = wing

Thus, straight-winged.

Yay etymology!

For all their outward similarity to spiders, daddy longlegs are considered by arachnologists to be more closely related to the Acari--the mites and ticks--then they are to the spiders, the Aranae. Unlike spiders, their abdomen and cephalothorax are broadly joined, so that they seem to have no waists.

Chapter IV: Order Opiliones - Daddy Longlegs

Those eight long legs of his are delicate and break off easily at the first joint nearest the body, either side of which is studded with sensory organs that let him know where there is stress on his legs.

Chapter IV: Order Opiliones - Daddy Longlegs

Those eight long legs of his are delicate and break off easily at the first joint nearest the body, either side of which is studded with sensory organs that let him know where there is stress on his legs.

Chapter III - Order Coleoptera: Ladybugs

Fireflies are actually beetles and belong to the order Coleoptera ("sheath wings"). Dragonflies are of the order Odonata ("tooth").

We also saw four question marks, Polygonia interrogationis, which are angelwings, as the genus name suggests. Nearly all Polygonia species are northern forest butterflies with ragged outlines and mottled brown color; they are good dead-leaf mimics.