PCB COASTERS

Ants are everywhere and have been around for a long time. They appear in the fossil record across the globe during the latest Early Cretaceous. They can be identified by the antennae on the front of their heads and have a body structured in 3 sections with a narrow waist. Bees are the most important pollinators of flowers worldwide and are responsible for making the delicious honey that we all like. Ants along with wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera.

Dragonflies were some of the first winged insects to evolve, approximately 300 million years ago. They characterized by large, multifaceted eyes and two pairs of strong, transparent wings. They can fly very fast with their long wings and travel great distances. Scorpions are arachnids characterized by having eight legs, a pair of large grasping claws and a narrow tail with a stinger. The evolutionary history of scorpions goes back 435 million years.

Beetles are the most common type of insect. They differ from all other winged insects by having the front pair of wings hardened and thickened. There are 12,000 different kinds of beetles in the United States and over 300,000 species in the world. Some beetles are not considered pests.

Ladybugs are a type of beetle with rounded bodies. They are often bright red with black spots on their shells. The artist uses immersion gold to depict the black dots on the ladybug. It is a delight to look at the beauty of butterflies with their large wings. These insects come in a great variety of sizes and colors. To become a butterfly, a caterpillar first digests itself, the process is called metamorphosis.