Bob Gallaghar, age J.1, of Neill, Neb., or his question:  

How do they classify insects?

The experts have classified all the known living things in either the animal or the vegetable kingdoms. Insects, of course, are classed in the animal kingdom. This is further divided into phyla, the plural of phylum, which is coined from an older word meaning tribe. All the animals in a certain phylum have certain features in common. They may or may not be related. They may or may not be descended from the same remote ancestor.

Insects ire classed in the phylum Arthropoda  the pointed footed ones. All the animals in the phylum have tough skins or crusts which act as outside skeletons. Garters of more pliable crust act as points. The shrimps, spiders, lobsters and crabs are also arthropods. The phylum is subdivided into classes and the insects have the class Insects all to themselves.

Each class of animals is subdivided into orders and the orders into families. Families are subdivided into genera and again into species. You can memorize these smaller and smaller subdivisions with a non sense sentence

 Kings play checkers on fine grained sand  the first letter of each word in kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus (singular of genera) and species, which is the same singular or plural.

Insects form the biggest class of animals in the world. More than half a million different ones have been named and classified and some say that more than a million are still waiting to be discovered. To be in the class Insects, an animal must have three pairs of legs and a body in three parts   head, thorax and abdomen.

The vast horde of insects is divided into some 25 different orders, depending upon certain features. For example, bees and many other insects have chewing mouths.

Butterflies and many other insects gave sucking mouths. Some, like the butterflies, have four wings while others, like the housefly, have only two. Some have gauzy wings, like the dragonfly     and others have leathery wings, like the beetles. Some have more, some have less points in their antennae[ or points in their toes.

These and other features are taken into account when a newly found insect is discovered. Suppose the new specimen is rather small, with tine pair of gauzy wings and a pair of balancing stubs at his sides. Suppose his head is big, his eyes are larger has antennae are short and he has a sucking mouth. Chances are, he is a true fly and belongs in the order Diotea  the two winged ones;

Lets find a sizeable insect with four wide velvety wings. Ha has a sucking mouth. Under the microscope, you can see that his jewel like wings are covered with tiny scales. He belongs in the order Lepidoptera  the scaley winged ones and he is, of course; either a moth  or s butterfly.