Check with your teacher or librarian for the login information for Pebble Go and Kids Britannica.
What Makes a Bug a True Bug? | What’s Bugging You? | PBS LearningMediaWhen is a bug a true bug? Find out with entomologist Dr. Art Evans and VPM radio producer Steve Clark as they delve into the characteristics, classification, and proper spelling of the common names of true bugs. Many people refer to almost any small multi-legged animal as a “bug,” but entomologists must necessarily be more precise. To them, a true bug refers only to members of Hemiptera, an order of insects that also includes cicadas, hoppers, and aphids. Like all insects, hemipterans have an external skeleton, three major body regions, and six legs.
Hemipterans are distinguished from all other insects by a suite of characteristics that include hemimetabolous development and piercing-sucking mouthparts. Hemimetaboly, or gradual development, consists of an egg, nymph, and adult. Nymphs generally resemble adults in form and habit, but lack wings. True bugs are placed in Heteroptera, a suborder distinguished from other hemipterans by having modified forewings with membranous wingtips and thick, leathery bases.
