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Most species are insects, and insects have a decent claim to be the most successful land animals. But for all that, the ocean remains almost entirely closed to them.<\/span><\/p>\n More fascinating insect facts<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Water striders in the genus Halobates<\/i> are the only truly marine insects, though a few hundred other species live in salty coastal environments. So why aren\u2019t there more insects in the sea?<\/span><\/p>\n One theory\u00a0 is that it\u2019s for the same reason that there are so few fish on land \u2013 the habitat is already bursting with their relations. Recent work on the evolutionary history of insects shows that they evolved long ago from a small group of primitive shrimp-like crustaceans, in the same way that land vertebrates \u2013 amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds \u2013 evolved from a small group of fishes.<\/span><\/p>\n Crustaceans, from tiny krill and water fleas to enormous crabs and lobsters, throng anywhere there is water. Though a few crustaceans routinely live on land (such as woodlice and land crabs), the Earth\u2019s surface and the air have become dominated by insects. Crustaceans\u2019 external gills have been replaced by insects\u2019 internal breathing-tubes, and some of the many appendages crustaceans carry around on their multi-branched legs might have evolved into the wings of modern flying insects.<\/span><\/p>\n Because insects almost certainly evolved on land, many of their adaptations \u2013 from reproduction to the physiology of eating and breathing \u2013 are tailored to a terrestrial existence. Even those insects that live much of their lives in fresh water cannot stray too far from dry land.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> <\/body><\/html>\n By BBC Wildlife Magazine Published: Wednesday, 04 January 2023 at 12:00 am Most species are insects, and insects have a decent claim to be the most successful land animals. But for all that, the ocean remains almost entirely closed to them. More fascinating insect facts Why some flowers look like insects Does Antarctica have any […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":23739,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/sea-insects-why-are-there-so-few-insects-in-the-ocean.jpg",2190,1369,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/sea-insects-why-are-there-so-few-insects-in-the-ocean-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/sea-insects-why-are-there-so-few-insects-in-the-ocean-300x188.jpg",300,188,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/sea-insects-why-are-there-so-few-insects-in-the-ocean-768x480.jpg",768,480,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/sea-insects-why-are-there-so-few-insects-in-the-ocean-1024x640.jpg",800,500,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/sea-insects-why-are-there-so-few-insects-in-the-ocean-1536x960.jpg",1536,960,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/sea-insects-why-are-there-so-few-insects-in-the-ocean-2048x1280.jpg",2048,1280,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By BBC Wildlife Magazine Published: Wednesday, 04 January 2023 at 12:00 am Most species are insects, and insects have a decent claim to be the most successful land animals. But for all that, the ocean remains almost entirely closed to them. More fascinating insect facts Why some flowers look like insects Does Antarctica have any…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/23738"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Why are there so few insects in the sea?<\/h2>\n
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