The word insect comes from the Latin word insectum from in, "cut up", as insects appear to be cut into three parts. The Latin word was introduced by Pliny the Elder who calqued the Ancient Greek word ἔντομον éntomon "i… See more

In common speech, insects and other terrestrial arthropods are often called bugs. Entomologists to some extent reserve the name "bugs" for a narrow category of "true bugs", insects of the order Hemiptera, such as … See more

Insects form a clade, a natural group with a common ancestor, among the arthropods. A phylogenetic analysis by Kjer et al. (2016) places the insects among the Hexapoda, six-legged animals with segmented bodies; their closes… See more