Insects have been present for about 350 million years, and humans for only 10,000 years. It's a giant Hercules Beetle from the Insect Zoo at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. The huge insect is crawling on a hand, in front of a bright red background. Smithsonian Photo by Chip Clark. Copyright 1993 Smithsonian Institution.
Beetles account for one quarter of all known species of plants and animals.
There are more kinds of beetles than all plants. Blow flies are the first kind of insect attracted to an animal carcass following death. Male mosquitoes do not bite humans, but rather live on plant juices and other natural liquids from plants and decomposing organic material. True flies have only one pair of wings, and sometimes, none at all. Vladimir Nobokov, a famous Russian author, collected butterflies and actually named as a new subspecies the Kamer Blue Butterfly from the pine barrens of the Northeast United States.