Yes, Insects are technically speaking “Animals”. To understand in-depth whether insects are animals, we need to critically look into the definitions of the terms and the criteria an organism has to meet to fall into a certain definition. So without further ado, let’s get right into it

Let’s elaborate on this, an animal is an organism that belongs to the kingdom “Animalia”. Insects reflect the characteristics of the animal kingdom the most. Some of the characteristics that make an organism fall under the kingdom of Animalia are

They are multicellular organisms that do not possess chlorophyll.
They are eukaryotic organisms.
The cell wall is absent.
Mode of nutrition is heterotrophic i.e. they depend on other organisms for food.
They have muscle cells to which they can contract and relax the body parts.
Reproduction is sexual. However, asexual reproduction is also found in lower forms.
During development, the multicellular embryo is formed from the zygote.
They require oxygen for aerobic respiration.

These are usually some common characteristics of insects. To get a better gist of what constitutes the characteristics of the other kingdoms here is a look

Kingdom Monera: Unicellular and colonial–including the true bacteria (eubacteria) and cyanobacteria (blue-green algae)

Kingdom Protista: Unicellular protozoans and unicellular & multicellular (macroscopic) algae with 9 + 2 cilia and flagella (called undulipodia).

Kingdom Fungi: Haploid and dikaryotic (binucleate) cells, multicellular, generally heterotrophic, without cilia, and eukaryotic (9 + 2) flagella (undulipodia).

Kingdom Plantae: Haplo-diploid life cycles, mostly autotrophic, retaining embryo within female sex organ on the parent plant.

So it is very easy to conclude that insects fall under the “Animalia Kingdom” and hence are animals without a doubt in the conventional meaning of words. But don’t worry this overly generalized word is further subdivided into phyla and classes to further specify the different types of organisms

So technically insects are a class of the phylum known as Anthropod which lies under the kingdom of “Animalia”. As Animalia is a very big kingdom that includes within itself over a million types of organisms. It is very efficient to subdivide it along with other kingdoms further down.

The simple definition of insects under the phylum of Anthropoids is that they come with a joint pair of 3 legs, an exoskeleton that has a head, thorax, and abdomen, along with the usual antennae in the head. Moreover, it also usually comes with 2 pairs of wings.

Table of Contents:

Animals That Don’t Fall Under The Class “Insects”

Harvestmen
Thelyphonida
Attercopus
Tics and Mites.
Spiders.
Centipedes.
Springtails.
Harvestmen.
Scorpions.
Wind scorpions.
Mites

Fun Fact

Insects also have the largest biomass of all the animals living on earth. As of now, an estimated of over 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) living insects are roaming around in the world

Do Insects Feel Pain?

Yes, insects do feel pain, this has been proved by quite a few studies that have been done in this very field. Moreover, a recent study has found that insects not only feel pain but also are prone to chronic pain which refers to pain after an injury has been healed. Down below are the words of Associate Professor Neely from Sydney

“People don’t think of insects as feeling any kind of pain, But it’s already been shown in lots of different invertebrate animals that they can sense and avoid dangerous stimuli that we perceive as painful. In non-humans, we call this sense ‘nociception’, the sense that detects potentially harmful stimuli like heat, cold, or physical injury, but for simplicity, we can refer to what insects experience as ‘pain’. So we knew that insects could sense ‘pain’, but what we didn’t know is that an injury could lead to long-lasting hypersensitivity to normally non-painful stimuli in a similar way to human patients’ experiences.”. If you want to know more on this topic Scientific American has a great article written this very topic. So do give it a look too if you are interested in “I’ll Bee There for You: Do Insects Feel Emotions?“

Do Insects Sleep?

Yes, insects do sleep and they also have a nervous system which is one of the most important characteristics that an organism needs to have when it comes to sleeping so it has that covered on its side. But apart from sleeping, it is usually found that they have some kind of sleeping pattern that they love to adhere to. Another question that arises along with sleeping is Do Insects Dream? well, let’s answer that now

Do Insects Dream?

No, insects do not dream as this is a state that a mammal or bird gets into during REM sleep. And though insects are observed to have been in the state of rest and sleep the studies that we have conducted until now don’t advocate that they experience REM sleep which is a state in which an organism experiences dreams

Do Insects Feel Emotions?

Yes, though there has been no conclusive answer to this question as of now, quite a few recent studies show that insects experience emotions. A recent study conducted at the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University showed that insects showed different behaviors while perceiving their surroundings, which is considered an emotional reaction. The study took a colony of honeybees and placed it on the vortexing machine and stimulated a badger attack whilst the machine shook violently. This led to the bees becoming irritated and the researchers were able to observe the difference in their behavior. It was observed that bees were reacting the same as other animals and even humans would if put in a situation like this

Basic Food Of Insects

There are over 900 thousand different kinds of insects living on earth as of now and there is a very huge variety of things that many different types of insects eat and drink. Some of the most common things that insects eat are