BY THE NUMBERS

+60 Years

Woodborers live the longest of all insects. A jewel beetle from the Cape holds the record – it emerged from a yellowwood plank that was more than 60 years old. These beetles only lay their eggs in living trees, so the eggs must have been even older than that!

30 Years

How long some ant and termite queens can live.

20 cm

The length of some stick insects. They have the longest bodies of all insects in South Africa. Go grab your ruler to see how long they are!

18 cm

The wingspan of the emperor moth. The male smells 1 500 0 times better than a human, using plumed feelers. He can smell mell the pheromones of a female over a distance of up to 15 km! ! (Pheromones are chemicals that certain creatures secrete to communicate with each other.)

9 km/h

The speed at which a tiger beetle can run on land over short distances. A Namib toktokkie weighs ten times as much as a tiger beetle, but can run at a speed of 5,5 km/h over longer distances. That’s 14 laps of an athletics track in an hour!

1 Week

That’s how long a mosquito lives – if your dad doesn’t squash it first!