This talk is a celebration of everything with six legs. Insects are by far the most abundant and diverse group of organisms on earth, with by some estimates well over a million species – or slightly over half of ALL species known to live on our planet. And yet what do we REALLY know about these critters? Some of the things insects do are stranger than fiction, but rest assured that they are doing it all the time right under our noses. For example, did you know that male dragonflies can scoop sperm from a previous male out of females’ reproductive organs? Or that some wasps lay eggs inside living caterpillars, and the wasp larvae eat the caterpillar alive from the inside out? And then there are the more familiar stories involving metamorphosis, pollination, and mimicry. So join us to learn some of the basics of insect biology, including an overview of the major groups