What exactly is an insect? To begin, insects don't have a vertebral column (backbone) like people have and therefore are considered to be a type of invertebrate animal. Instead of a backbone, insects have a hard exterior body covering, called an exoskeleton. Insects are arthropods: invertebrate animals that have an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and jointed appendages. Arthropods are members of the taxonomic phylum Arthropoda, which includes insects, arachnids, and crustaceans. Insects represent about 90 percent of all life forms on earth. More than one million insect species have been identified throughout the world, and some entomologists (scientists that study insects) estimate there may be as many as 10 million species. These species are divided into 32 groups called orders, and beetles make up the largest group. No one knows exactly how many insects are found within Everglades National Park. Entomologists have prepared lists of some insect groups, such as bees, ants, and butterflies, but no park-wide inventory has been carried out yet. The South Florida Collections Management Center, which houses museum collections from five National Park Service units in south Florida, curates more than 5,000 insect specimens from Everglades National Park.
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