Insects — Class Insecta

Should nuclear war or a meteorite devastate the planet, insects will likely survive the calamity! Sheer numbers, as well as resilience, would ensure their persistence. Insects are the most diverse group of animals on the planet. This is true in the Arctic, as elsewhere. Their basic body plan consists of three parts: a head, a thorax – to which three pairs of legs are attached – and a segmented abdomen. Most insects can fly and some are aerial acrobats. This trait has likely contributed to their success at colonizing most habitats on Earth.

Insects are vital to the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. They play an important role in the breakdown of plants, and are a key link in food webs, providing nourishment for a variety of other animals. However, studies have shown that insects in the Arctic do not consume as much plant material as they do in warmer regions. Nonetheless, arctic insects are crucial for the recycling of nutrients, as well as for the pollination of flowers.

Of the more than 30,000 insect species in Canada, only 1500 occur above the tree line. This figure drops to about 350 species in the High Arctic, although there are many more species of insects that remain to be described in Canada’s Arctic as many areas have not been surveyed. Many common groups of insects are absent from the Arctic; there are no ants, and only one species of grasshopper extends just north of the tree line. The composition of insect communities in the Arctic deviates drastically from patterns in the rest of the world. While beetles, bees and wasps, and butterflies and moths comprise the majority of insects in the world, the High Arctic is home to only a few species of these insect groups. Flies, on the other hand, absolutely dominate this extreme environment – one of every two arctic insects is a fly.

We have divided our descriptions of arctic insects into five groups, the four most common orders and a miscellaneous category:

Bees and Wasps (Hymenoptera)
Beetles (Coleoptera)
Butterflies and Moths (Lepidoptera)
Flies (Diptera)
Aphids (Homoptera)
Caddisflies (Trichoptera)
Lice (Siphonaptera)