The heaviest insects are the Goliath Beetles from the family Scarabaeidae. The length of one species is 4.33 inches from the frontal horns to the end of the abdomen. They weigh 3.5 ounces! ALMOST A QUARTER POUNDER! How would you like one of those guys hitting your windshield?!

The largest cockroach is Megaloblatta longipennis of Columbia (that name is not a joke...honest). The largest specimen ever recorded was a female (how do they know?) that measured 3.81 inches long by 1.77 inches across!

the longest insect is a "stick bug" from the rain forests of Borneo. The largest specimen ever recorded is in the Natural History Museum in London. Its body length is 12.9 inches. Its total length including its legs is 20 inches!

The "feather-winged" beetles and the "battledore-wing fairy flies" are smaller than some species of protozoa (single cell creatures).

A species of Australian dragon fly has been clocked at 36 MPH.

The fastest land moving insects are the tropical cockroaches. They can move 50 body lengths per second. This would be equivalent to a human sprinter running the 100 yard dash in 1 second or approximately 200MPH!

A centipede in southern Europe has 177 PAIRS of legs!

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Longest Flea Jump

Of the 1,830 varieties of fleas, the champion jumper is the cat flea. It has been known to leap to a height of 34 inches. While this may not sound impressive, consider that in jumping such an incredible height relative to body size the flea is subjecting itself to over 200 g's! Imagine a 100 lb person leaping so fast and so high (over 1000 feet!) that the g force he/she was enduring made he/she feel as if they weighed 20,000 lbs! Relatively, fleas take off with greater acceleration than the Space Shuttle.

Worlds Largest Fleas

The largest known variety of flea (there are 1,830 varieties!) is Hystrivhopsylla schefferi. This species of flea is known from only one specimen taken from the nest of a mountain beaver. It was 1/3 of an inch long!

The Anopheles mosquito, which carries the malaria parasite Plasmodium is estimated to have been responsible for half of the human deaths in history outside of war and accidents since the Stone Age. This claim is always debated by those who would say, "Well the parasite is causing the deaths, not the mosquitoes!" However, I am on the side of the debate that maintains the parasite must be delivered by the mosquito vector to infect its host. It is harmless to humans without the mosquito.

The largest spider in the world is the giant bird eating spider (Theraphosa leblondi) of Guyana, Surinam, and French Guiana. In 1965, a male specimen was collected that had a leg span of 11.02 inches!

The family Theraphosadae also holds the record for the heaviest spider. A female specimen collected in Surinam weighed a whopping 4.3 ounces. She also had 1 inch fangs.

Those amazing Theraphosadins also hold the record for the longest lived spiders. One specimen lived for an estimated 26-28 years.

Worlds Smallest Spider

The worlds smallest spider is the Patu marplesi of Samoa. They are only 0.0017 inches overall. They are about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

Worlds Most Venomous Spider

The Brazilian wandering spiders are the most venomous spiders in the world and they are particularly aggressive. They frequently take up residence in peoples cloths or shoes and bite ferociously several times when they are disturbed. Luckily there is an antivenin to their potent neurotoxin.

Females of the Queen Alexandra's birdwing butterfly of New Guinea may have a wing span greater than 11 inches!

A tagged Monarch butterfly was released near Ontario, Canada and was recovered 4 months later in Angangueo , Mexico. The straight line distance between these two sites is 2,133 miles. However, the actual distance traveled could be double this figure.

...that dragonfly larvae develop under the water and have a unique method of locomotion? They have jet powered butts! They rapidly eject water from their anus to propel them for short distances.

...that dragonfly larvae use their jet butts to help them catch and eat up to 300 mosquito larvae a day?