Once, my dad told me a story. It was a story about insects and a little boy who was curious about them.
This little boy had a passion for bugs--he liked to catch them. For whatever sadistic reason I am not sure, but I do now that insect in the picture above was one of his favorites. FYI, that is a dragonfly LOL.
So anyway, he caught that insect, and he tried to drown it, by sticking its head in a pail of water. For those of you who are scientifically inclined, I wonder what you are thinking about it. You drown a dragonfly by sticking its HEAD into the water???
Now here comes a bit of science. That bug does not have a "nose". It breathes through holes in the side of its long body, and the holes connect to pipes in their bodies known as "tracheal trunks". These trunks run as long as the insect's tiny body, and they have many many small branches known as "tracheole". These tracheole are as thin as a cell in diameter. And why?? This is to ensure that the oxygen can diffuse from the liquid in the tracheole to the body of the insect. Let me show you what I mean...
So in that sense, you can't really "drown" an insect with its head in the water--because it breathes with its butt.
I wonder how my dad ever became an entomologist anyway. HE was the boy who tried to drown a dragonfly by dunking its head underwater.
