Humans and other animals are not the only ones who rely on their teeth to tear and crunch their food. Many insects or bugs have some of the same mouthparts as humans to bite and chew food for nourishment. Others have different ways of eating their food.
We’ll discuss some of these bugs to find out what mouthparts they have and how they use their teeth.
What Do Bugs Eat and How Do They Eat It?
A bug’s diet usually determines whether or not they have teeth or some other form of mouthparts to eat. The four most commonly known mouthparts distinguish and separate the kinds of insects into their orders or families. Bugs are known to be able to eat all kinds of organic materials, plants, animal tissues, liquids, and even foods spit out by other animals.
The Biting Insects
First, it will help to know the names of the five structures used for biting in some insects:
Image from Wikimedia Commons
A grasshopper is an insect that uses its mouthparts to cut, pinch, chew, or grind food. Grasshoppers most often eat plants, so when they decide to eat a tasty leaf, they grab a part of it with their pincers, bring it into their mouth, and the mandible chews it up to be digested by the insect. Grasshoppers are also known to eat smaller bugs.
A stag beetle is another cool bug with pincers on the outside of its body. Their long antler-like pincers grab their food and bring it into their mouthparts to be eaten. The pincers are very hard and hold onto the prey or plant being consumed, while the stag beetle’s mandible chews and breaks down the food for digestion.
Cockroaches are one of the oldest groups of insects on earth, having existed for more than 300 million years! Like other insects, they have three-part bodies: a head, thorax, and abdomen. The cockroach’s head contains its mouthparts. Much like the grasshopper and the stag beetle, the pincers bring food to the mouth, and the mandibles chew and help their food get further into their digestive system.
Insects With Piercing-Sucking Mouthparts
Insects with piercing-sucking mouthparts use a stylet, or puncturing part, coming from their mouth to punch into plant or animal tissue. The stylet allows the fluids to be sucked back into the insect, and this is how they get their nourishment. This type of insect is usually associated with disease transmission in plants and animals. Let’s explore a couple of these types of bugs.
When you describe how this type of insect gets nourished, the first bug that probably comes to mind is the mosquito. It uses a special mouthpart called a proboscis which is a long tube that goes into and under your skin to suck out blood. In return, it injects saliva back into your skin and causes a reaction to occur, such as a red bump and itching.
Fleas burrow into their food sources in much the same way. They used their saw-like mandibles to cut through the skin and pierce it with their proboscis (stylet), then suck the blood from the animal. They then secrete their saliva back into the bloodstream and tissues of the donor. Pets are most likely to attract fleas, and pets can carry them indoors onto humans.
Insects That Sponge Food
The way a housefly feeds is called sponging. If the fly finds something that it wants to eat, it will vomit, or regurgitate, on that item and let the digestive enzymes in the fluid break down the food and liquify it. Then, the housefly will sink its specialized proboscis and stylet into the liquid and suck it directly into its stomach.
Insects That Siphon Their Food
The final type of insect mouthpart is the siphoning one. Butterflies and moths uncoil their long tube-like proboscis and insert it into where the nectar is in the flower. It then siphons out the fluids found in there, just like humans use a straw. The mouthparts of a butterfly or moth are referred to as siphoning ones.
Takeaways
Humans and other animals are not the only living things with teeth. Many insects, or bugs, use their mouthparts the same as we use our teeth. Some parts of their mouths even have the same names or are close to the same names as ours – like the maxillae and the mandible. Many people do not like bugs because they can bite like humans and other animals do - but they often bite us!
We only see humans at Jungle Roots, but it’s fun to investigate and discuss other species with teeth! Examining some bugs' teeth will really make you think the next time you see a housefly on your hamburger or a flea on the family pet.
Call us at Jungle Roots to schedule a cleaning and check-up with our professional staff, and we’ll ensure you are doing your best to keep your own mouthparts in great shape!
