Scott Greenwood, age 12, of Birmingham, Ala., for his question:

DO INSECTS OUTNUMBER ALL ANIMALS?

Insect is the common name for a very large group of small, six legged animals. The family includes the ants, bees, houseflies, mosquitoes, cockroaches and more than 800,000 other creatures. Insects form the largest class of animals in the world, far outnumbering all other animals.

There are actually at least four times as many different kinds of insects as all other kind of animals combined. That's a lot of insects!

An interesting thing is that about 10,000 new kinds of insects are being discovered by scientists every year. They say there may be as many as 10 million kinds of insects still undiscovered.

You'll find insects in almost every corner of the earth. They're at home in the frozen lands of the north and south poles, the tropical jungles or the hot deserts. You'll find lots of insects everywhere except in the oceans. Here you'll only find a few.

Moses insects are about a quarter of an inch long, although the smallest is only one hundredth of an inch in length. On the other end of the scale is a four inch beetle or the Atlas moth with a wingspread of about 10 inches. The Atlas moth is about 1,000 times larger than the fairy fly.

You'll find three pairs of legs, a body divided into three main parts (the head, thorax and abdomen) and a tough shell like covering on all insects. Also, most insects have wings and a pair of antennae on their heads.

Insects do not have lungs. They breathe through holes in their sides. Many hear by hairs located on their bodies while others have ears on their legs. Although insects do not have voices, some can make noise that can be heard as far as a mile away.

Would you believe that less than 1 percent of the 800,000 kinds of insects are harmful to man? Well, its true. The major insect pests include the boll weevils, which destroy cotton plants, the Hessian flies which attack wheat, corn ear worms and chinch bugs which feed on corn and other farm crops, and Colorado beetles which destroy potatoes.

Other harmful insects include clothes moths, silverfish, termites, cockroaches, flies and other insects that eat food stored in homes.

In the same class are a number of biting and bloodsucking flies and bugs that spread poison and germs, causing disease and sometimes even death.

Many insects are beneficial, including the bees, wasps, butterflies and others that pollinate plants. Many fruits and vegetables depend on insect pollinators for the production of seeds. Also, bees give us honey and silkworms give us silk.

Insects are an important source of food for birds, fish and other animals. And many feed on animal wastes and dead animals, keeping the landscape clean. Other insects that live in the ground enrich the soil with their wastes.