I don't know much about insects or about taxonomy but I have always wondered this.
In everyday life, we refer to insects, spiders, whatever, as bugs, but I've often heard it said that, in a scientific context, only the insects of the order Hemiptera are considered "true bugs".
This seems so strange to me. If "bug" came first as a slang term it seems weird that taxonomists would adopt it as a technical one. And I would have been surprised to learn that it was a technical term first because I would expect a Latin name.
Anyway, I googled around a little and found that the word predates modern taxonomy and the earliest known reference is to bedbugs, which are of course of the order Hemiptera. But how did we get from this, to "bug" being used the way it is in the common vernacular, but with some insisting that it's really only correct when referring to hemipterans? Are actual scientists working in this field really sticklers about this distinction (is it a jackdaws/crows situation...?), or is it more just a "fun fact" that laypeople like to pass around?
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/Entomology/comments/gxugjw/what_does_it_mean_that_only_hempiterans_are/
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