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this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2025
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Science Memes
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“Bug” is a folksy word for any invertebrate with 6 or more legs. For example, they call lobsters and crayfish bugs.
many people call slugs, snails, and worms bugs too. So any invertibrate with the right vibes
So there is no such thing as a bug, in the same way that there is no such thing as a tree
It's a feature
Or a fish! If there were, then people would be fish and sharks would not be.
Fish could be defined as the most recent common ancestor of tuna and herring, and all of its descendants. That would exclude sharks and lungfish, but would include most other groups that we unambiguously recognise as fish, while excluding tetrapods.
Beavers are fish
i sometimes call anything an insect that's smaller than a small rabbit or lizard (depending on the mood of day) and has no spine. it's colloquial use
I've learned recently that "Vegetable" is kind of like that too. Like most vegetables are fruits, seeds, leaves, roots, etc etc. Vegetable is a culinary term, not a botanical one, and it's still foggy. It's basically a plant that isn't sweet, but they also call sweet corn a vegetable so whatever.
Not only is vegetable like that, but "fruit" is like that too. Notably, apples and strawberries are not botanical fruits, each little "seed" on the strawberry is the fruit, and the section of core around each apple seed.
The human being shares 70% of the DNA with a potato, some people many more
If a pillbug/rollypoly/potato bug/doodlebug/ is a bug? Then lobsters and crabs are absolutely bugs. This actually doesn’t bother me.
Lobsters and Crabs are 100% giant sea insects. Shrimp are basically giant sea gnats. They are tasty and provide nutrients. No problem there. Plenty of cultures eat land insects.
Bugs of the sea
tasty sea roaches? 😬
and bats
bug is typically something that stings, while insect is more generic.
Not always. Flies, ants, and mosquitoes are all considered bugs, despite having no stinging capacity to speak of.
Ants can definitely sting. Not all of them (some just spray acid or use their jaws to bite) but others have literal stingers.
But that's like...one of the defining features that a 6-year-old could tell you about them?
Well no but yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemiptera
But wasps can sting and they're not bugs. They can also bite. So the key part is piercing with their mouth. For true bugs (as in the biological sense)
Whenever I hold up a bug, and say to everyone, "Look, a bug, of the true order of bugs," everyone leaves the room because I'm doing the bug speech again
Yeah that's because that sounds funny. You should change it to something like "look, a bug. And I say that as this is a member of the order 'hemiptera', also known as 'true bugs.'"
Or perhaps it's just your face? People listen to me quite easily.
i said typically, and colloquially. literally zero people refer to hemiptera specifically when they say bug. if you look at the american heritage dictionary, that's the exact order used in the definitions:
#bug
/bŭg/
noun
An insect having mouthparts used for piercing and sucking, such as an aphid, a bedbug, or a stinkbug.
An insect of any kind, such as a cockroach or a ladybug.
A small invertebrate with many legs, such as a spider or a centipede.
Very ethnocentric of you. I first heard it from Stephen Fry, so no, not literally zero people.
Also, it's literally the first definition there. That's the definition of the species in hemiptera. Just because you don't know anyone who knows orders of animals in latin doesn't mean we don't exist.
I for one always enjoyed reading taxonomy, especially because sometimes translating a species can be quite weird if you don't know the translation and have to essentially hope that the yellow-breasted warbler is the thing they also described it as in the other language. Sometimes it's another feature.
But I'm sure you'd know roughly what I mean if I refer to the order of primates. Possibly the infraorder cetacean as well. Especially if you've watched Star Trek religiously.
Stephen Fry on Insects, and the beauty of nature and Evolution
That's the wrong clip but i can't be arsed to find it