Insects can taste with their feet and hear with their wings
For insects, which don't have a specifically defined body with particular senses and organs like us humans, various body parts do double the work. While their feet enable movement and stability, they also work as taste receptors. What are some of these strange places where insects have sensory organs?Image credits: Getty Images
Butterflies taste through their feet
Their feet help them identify delicious flowers that have the sweet nectar they want. This is important as not only do these beautiful creatures consume these nectars but they also feed it to the baby caterpillars. "You've got to make sure you're getting those babies on the right plant," said Katy Prudic, an entomologist at the University of Arizona to National Geographic. Image credits: Getty Images
Crickets and Locusts taste through their ovipositor
Insects like crickets and locusts have taste receptors in their ovipositor, an organ that deposits their eggs so that they can calculate if the place where they are keeping their offspring is safe or not.Image credits: Getty Images
Parasitoid Wasps taste through their antennae
For reasons similar to crickets and locusts, Parasitoid wasps receive taste through their antennae to test the potential host for laying their eggs. This involves a test of smell, touch, the presence of other parasitoids and more.
Image credits: Getty Images
Moths hear through their bellies
Moths such as geometer moths, looper moths, snout moths, hooktip and false owlet moths, detect movement and other sounds through a kind of ear called tympanum, located on their abdomen.Image credits: Getty Images
Katydids and Grasshoppers hear through their knees
Katydids and Grasshoppers have specialized hearing organs called tympanal organs near the base of their hind legs. These organs have membrane-like eardrums that vibrate in response to sound.Image credits: Getty Images
Yellow Swallowtail Butterflies see with their genitals
Kentaro Arikawa from the Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Japan discovered photoreceptor cells in the genitalia of these butterflies in 1980. In a 2001 paper, he explained that the ability to see is vital for these butterflies to reproduce, which is why they mate while facing away from each other.
Image credits: Getty Images
Start a Conversation
Post comment