Fairyflies - The Smallest Insects

Insects as a whole are an incredibly diverse group, and come in numerous shapes, sizes and forms, with more than a million described species being currently known of, representing more than half of all known living organisms. One characteristic that is shared with them all is small size, with the largest getting to weights of 70 grams as is the case of the Giant weta of New Zealand, which weigh in excess of around 3 times that of a typical house mouse.

The Mymaridae, commonly known as fairyflies are an example of this key trait of being small, with this family both including the world’s smallest known flying insect and even the smallest on record which will be discussed later, making them a truly remarkable group, and as such, push their established anatomy to the limit. Their name is actually a misnomer, as they are actually chalcid wasps belonging to the family Mymaridae, with most species being less than 1mm long, smaller than the average pinhead, although some do take this small size to the next level.

Background music:
Weirder Stuff - Geographer
Ambient Music - Brian Eno

Make sure to like and subscribe to learn more about our wonderful world!

Sources:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/an...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairyfly
http://delphacid.s3.amazonaws.com/388...
https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=5...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexand...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmymar
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/dat...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kikiki
https://projects.ncsu.edu/cals/course...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mymarom...
https://theconversation.com/the-real-...
https://jhr.pensoft.net/article/1635/...
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10....
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22078...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/dat...
https://sciblogs.co.nz/code-for-life/...
https://www.livescience.com/28990-new...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichog...
http://taxondiversity.fieldofscience....
https://www.beepeeking.com/blog/fairy...
https://askentomologists.com/2014/12/...
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/F...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicopom...

Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research.

All video/game content is recorded and edited under fair use rights for reasons of commentary and social satire.