please explain "animals and insects"

Now this is an interesting one, because I would never in my life refer to most insects as 'an animal' despite the fact that they categorically are. I guess animals feel... bigger, for lack of a better term. For example, if you said 'I have a lot of bugs / insects in my flat', that would parse. However, if you said 'I have a lot of animals in my flat' I would assume that you own many pets. 'I stepped on a bug' makes sense, 'I stepped on an animal' sounds like you trampled a dog. That's not even accounting for people who are, frankly, just plain stupid and don't realise that bugs are, in fact, animals. Hell, there are plenty of people who will argue with you if you tell them that humans are animals.

Some people seem to, incorrectly, treat 'animal' as a synonym for 'mammal'.

It's not that they don't know insects are animals, just that in the particular context they're making a distinction between insects and any other non-insect animal.

There's just not a strict matchup between the scientific taxonomy and how language is used. Like if somebody called a spider an insect I'd understand what they meant even if scientifically it's wrong. Or if someone said 'palm tree' I would know what they meant even if palms aren't botanically trees. And don't get me started on bugs. There is a meaningful distinction between creepy-crawlies and tetrapods which is hard to express in English. If I said "did you see a tetrapod or an invertebrate" most people would look at you weird, so 'animal or insect' exists even if it's not scientifically true. Of course I'd argue that all these words predate the scientific definitions, so it's really the scientist's fault.

Some people don't treat Insects like animals but a separate category yes.

While yes, technically they are animals, conceptually they're sort of different. "Proper" animals are things like cows, pigs, sheep, chickens.

It's true some people don't realize insects are animals (i had to explain to someone the other day that yes, insects are in the kingdom animalia) however I'd say most people do know that they are, its just that colloquially people would think of verterbrates if you said animal, so its a way of asking that (as no one says "was it a veterbrate or an invertebrate" unless they're a scientist)

Ordinary English uses “animal” to mean something roughly like what scientific terminology calls “vertebrates”. Folk terminology rarely matches scientific usage in any language.

All insects are animals Domain - Eukarya (all organisms with a nucleus in their cells) Kingdom - Animalia (animals) Phylum - Arthropoda (has an exoskeleton - spiders, crabs, insects, etc) Class - Insecta (insects) Since the insecta class is part of the animalia kingdom, all insects are animals

As a native speaker I’ve never heard this ever and if someone said it to me I’d question it

I think people are tiering animals and insects separately based on cognitive differences. Presumably things like cats and wolves and elk have a much higher psychological function than spiders, silverfish and wasps. Organic things like grass and trees are organically living things too but people generally don't care if they step on grass or scratch a tree. I believe it's a very specicentric thing we do.

I think in everyday English, 'animal' effectively has two meanings - all members of the kingdom Animalia, or alternatively it carries the implication of being a large-ish land animal - a mammal, reptile, or amphibian. Using the more specific categories for these feels a bit formal and scientific. Either just 'animal' or a much more specific term would be used. Whereas birds, fish or insects are more likely to be said in everyday speech. And may or may not be included in the term 'animal' used casually. They are likely not the first type people would think of. For example, if you came across a new word and asked 'What a tapir?' or 'What's a Coelacanth?' the first answer would start with 'its an animal...' and the second wouldn't. So, oddly, although it seems redundant, saying animals and insects can avoid misunderstandings.

Interesting fact about non-English countries: everything you read here about English is also true for Ukrainian and (I guess) the nearby languages.

Just an FYI, in Spanish there's a game where you need to find a word beginning with a specific letter that fits different categories, and I've definitely seen it played with two of the categories being "animal" and "bug/insect". It's more a human perception thing than an English thing. Definitions, when in general use, often aren't a yes/no thing. There are central/prototypical cases, peripheral cases, marginal cases, and everything in between. So the prototypical piece of furniture may be a sofa, less central cases may be a bookshelf or TV stand, and marginal/debatable cases may be something like a grand piano or celestial globe. These perceptions may not be completely shared, either. Other commenters suggest that birds are somehow a marginal case of "animal", to be they are only slightly less central than cows, pigs, dogs, crocodiles, etc., and definitely not a marginal case.

It's honestly just a linguistic quirk. An animal would be anything that's not an insect or a human in most situations. Although, in certain cases it may also exclude anything that may possibly be classified as a fish or water animal. There's also a similar thing when talking about bugs/creepy crawlies because people will referer to Slugs, Snails, Spiders, and other non insect things as "bugs" even though often times a bug is generally meant "insect." Most people don't actually assume those things are bugs, just as most people don't believe that bugs are not animals. It's just that it's a way of talking casually. A lot of it can be colloquialisms. Honestly, English is so strange.

It's an interesting question. I notice that many cultures derived from western Europe tend to make this distinction, though almost all people that do understand that insects are animals. It seems when making the distinction they mean "insect or \[non-insect\] animal?". I suspect that before the 17th century that the common understanding was that they were distinct categories of living things, possibly because of their size, increased number of legs, and exoskeletons. It seems more like a practical distinction rather than a scientific one.

Yes, for some speakers insects aren't animals—for some speakers, fish aren't even considered animals.

i am following this one too english is confusing

Some people honestly do not know that insects are animals. Sometimes I even see people treat birds or fish as something other than animals. I think it’s just a lack of education.

When most people I know (in the US) hear animal, you think dog, cat, lion, elephant, etc. When you hear insect, you think ant, wasp, spider, flea. Most people don't remember/realize that insects are also considered animals.

Just sounds overly formal to say " or a mammal, or reptile, or etc." " Or some other animal" is the implication. It's common enough though that I've seen children confused as to whether insects are animals. Informally there are bugs ( to include arachnids and the odd exception of pill bugs) , and then there's everything else. To be fair it probably does have to do with not being in the 5 main groups and not being vertebrates Also some roots in the perception of soulessness.Being basically unintelligent etc.

In everyday speech, sometimes people will categorize things differently from the technical definition—sort of like how tomatoes and peppers are often grouped with vegetables even though they are fruits. People usually think of something like a dog or a cat rather than an insect when they hear the word “animal”, and many people dislike insects, so they mentally put insects in a different group than other animals. Scientifically, insects are animals, but colloquially, they are not. (The same can be said of humans, too.)

I think in my mind, I have primarily 3 categories of living things (aside from plants, fungi, single cell organisms, etc). Animals, bugs, and creatures. Animals have internal skeletons. i.e. Mammals, birds, reptiles, fish Bugs do not have internal skeletons. i.e. arachnids, beetles, bees, etc Creatures do not have any skeleton. i.e. Jellyfish, octopus, worms, etc That is my entirely non-scientific, arbitrarily assigned, personal classifications. Thank you for the question! I had a lot of fun reflecting on it.

Related - I’m a vegetarian, and I always think it’s strange when people ask if I eat fish (or when others call themselves vegetarian, but they eat fish). Fish are, of course, animals (which vegetarians do not eat; people who eat fish but not other animals are pescatarians).  I think the person who said people tend to think of “animals” as mammals, or larger land animals, is on to something. For what it’s worth, I’ve also seen birds separated out from “animals” in some contexts. 🤷‍♀️

Insects are part of the animal kingdom, but for linguistic purposes an "animal" is either a mammal, reptile/amphibian, or something like an octopus. Most of these are four-legged creatures with the occasional exception like the octopus I mentioned; or are four-limbed like whales or seals. Most also distinguish birds as a separate category from animals ("Is it a bird, or an animal?"). Fish, too. If you back up and ask about *scientific* classifications most English speakers should say "yes, of course they are a type of animal". But *linguistically* organisms are mostly labeled at the sub-phylum level: fish, insects, birds, etc. with "animals" being a near-synonym for "four-limbed". Plants are trickier, because botanical classifications bear almost no relation to linguistic classifications. The "pea family" includes species that are tiny single-season specimens up to massive trees. But you wouldn't talk that way when you ask your neighbor about their garden -- you would ask about their peas (the vegetable), their flowers (lupines), and their trees (acacia); you would *not* ask about their 'Fabaceae' (the pea family, to which all three species are members). Well, you might ask that way if you're both botany nerds, but the average person on the street would distinguish vegetables/produce from wildflowers, and both of those distinct from trees even if all three are closely related. It's not a linguistic thing, because there are absolutely words/vocab to describe these distinctions scientifically and any native speaker should be familiar with the scientific uses of the words (if you ask). It's a linguistic-cultural perception, or perhaps it's slang that has too much overlap with the rather different scientific uses of the terms.

It has more to do with awareness that bugs are animals. Most people are just unaware of that. Some people do the same thing with aquatic creatures.

Honestly some people's lack of biology education concerns me, stuff like that crops up from time to time,.some people even don't think that humans are animals.

I think it's just inarticulate and/or ignorant. People also post on forums and subs I am on with a picture of something in their garden and they ask "Is this a weed or a plant?" Which always kind of makes me laugh.

I remember singing a religious song as a child about how God created "animals, insects and fish of the sea". I suppose kids still learn stuff like that. It scans anyway. I also heard that there were three kingdoms, plant, animal and mineral, but that's pretty old-fashioned.

People also generally don't think of humans as animals. In fact, you'd call someone an animal typically as a sign of disapproval or as an insult. I hypothesize that people started saying "insect or animal" instead of "insect or non-insect animal" because the meaning can be easily inferred, which then became standard.

Everyone knows that insects are a kind of animal, but in casual speech “animal” more typically refers to animals of larger size, not tiny crawly things like insects. Generally, it is not wise to assume ignorance in a large population.

Humans are also animals. Do you get just as exercised when an English-speaker refers to “humans and animals”? Most of us just don’t know how ignorant we are in comparison to speakers of other languages.

Technically a tomato is a berry and a strawberry is not. And yet, if I served you a "berry pie" with tomatoes in it, you'd be justified in giving me a wedgie. Just because a word is scientifically defined in one way doesn't mean that colloquial meanings are wrong.

>I personally haven't heard someone from a non-English speaking country imply the same thing. Two things. First, you yourself say "I only speak two languages." Second, there's not really any implication at all as to scientific classifications or taxonomy. Words in daily use carry their own sets of associations for the contexts they're most commonly used in.

I remember reading a Peanuts cartoon when I was a kid, an early one (probably published 1950s-1960s) in which Linus was asking if Snoopy were a hunting dog: Linus: Does he hunt animals or birds? Charlie Brown: He mostly hunts for an easier way of life. I remember being shocked and scandalised that there was a choice of 'animals or birds' (probably why I still remember it over 30 years later) since birds are obviously also animals. But I think informally many people use 'animal' to mean mammals or at least land-dwelling creatures bigger than bugs: frogs and lizards perhaps, but fish and insects perhaps not--and birds, apparently. For me, insects are clearly animals, but as some other people have commented, if someone said their apartment were full of animals, I would assume they meant they had a lot of pets or maybe that it had mice, not that it was infested with insects.

This is a quirk of something you’ll find to be very interesting about English. We are pathologically obsessed with taxonomic meaning, if you have to translate that that’s okay. What I mean is, we care a stupid amount about putting things in boxes and about describing everything with near surgical precision in everyday speech. There’s a hierarchy of adjectives that all natives inherently know that if you mess up even once everyone can tell you aren’t native even if your accent is flawless. Another rather crazy one is how many terms we can have for seemingly the same concept, all of varying levels of semantic narrowness. This leads to English speakers being very specific about everything. Whether it be time, place, action, language, type, location, function, or whatever we find a way to classify it. I could digress into how this is evocative of a culture that had to classify things specifically because science, bureaucracy and law but I won’t as this is already Long. TL;DR: yes there is a difference, an animal isn’t an insect in the sense that they aren’t exactly the same thing, an insect is more accurately a type of animal. But this is a product of a quirk of English just caring a crazy amount about the specific definition of *everything*.

I think this is a really interesting question, I've never noticed it in English, but reading the comments in this thread was a trip bc in my native language if someone says "animal" it absolutely includes insects, even colloquially. Maybe r/asklinguistics would be a better fit for this question, many peoples are kinda misunderstanding what you're asking I think

I would say linguistic quirk. There are people who hear "animal" and only think of mammals (other than humans), or at least vertibrates (which may or may not include fish). I do not think that it is a regional thing, just popular (rather than scientific) classification.

Interesting: If a friend told me they were calling an exterminator because they had something in their attic, I would ask if it was an insect or an animal. Thinking my exterminator sprays for insects and puts out bait for rats but would not catch a squirrel in my attic or put bait in the attic. I don't worry about insects in my attic but rats and squirrels are more disruptive.

Technically insects are a type of animal.  However most people, when they hear "animal", they think of something bigger with less than 6 legs. 

It's just people being incorrect. A lot of people are uneducated or didn't retain much of their bio classes as children. So you not only get people who think insects aren't animals, you also sometimes get people who think fish aren't animals. They think "that's not an animal, that's a bug!" For some reason not realizing that all bugs are animals. But there are other instances of this where the accepted colloquial terms and the scientific terms don't match up, so pretty much all laymen English speakers are using the wrong word if you consider the scientific term the correct word. Like, strawberries and blueberries aren't berries but bananas are. But no one is ever going to refer to a banana as a berry.

>Do (certain?) English speakers consider bugs to not be animals?  For sure; there are lots of dumb English speakers who don't think humans are animals too. >Or is it a linguistic quirk without much associated meaning? Also yes. It's a bit like 'carne' in spanish which means meat but also means specifically beef, depending on the context. Usually when I hear something like " is it a bug or an animal" the animal is emphasized

OP - What bugs you in such phrases bugs me too. The other day somebody asked me - are crabs insects or animals? This is not a question for an English language sub but for r/biology

I don’t think this is unique to English at all. Most languages make distinctions between different sized groups of animals. And many languages use the same word for both scientific and common terminology. Another thing that isn’t unique to English is that scientific terminology often co-opts common use terminology. English speakers were using the word berry to refer to a category of small, edible fruits long before a botanist came along and said, “Actually, it’s a fruit without a pit produced by single flower with one ovary.” That scientific definition doesn’t negate the way people still use the word berry.

In general, English refers to vertebrates as "animals", insects as "insects" and small invertebrates (insects, arachnids, sometimes worms) as "bugs". Shellfish are never included as "bugs", though shrimp and crabs might be if someone is feeling silly (and wants to express their distaste for seafood!). This isn't a hard-and-fast rule, but you'll certainly be understood if you stick to it. Fun bonus fact: English once referred to caterpillars (and other larvae) as "worms" as well! This is now very old-fashioned (and would confuse most native speakers), but you can find examples of it in Shakespeare and the King James Version of the Bible (and other texts dating from the early-modern period).

Firstly please understand that they are not wrong when they speak like that. You might have also heard phrasings such as "human and animal". Basically, the word "animal" have existed long before scientists invented taxonomy and redefine the word "animal" to include all beings in the Animalia kingdom. In the original common vernacular meaning, the word only refers to non-human mammals or tetrapods, and this usage is preserved alongside the new scientific definition. The same thing is true for the German word Tier.

I haven’t heard this pairing in a phrase in American English, outside of “the birds and the bees”. I think I’ve seen them divided into sea, land, and air animals (like in the Bible).

It depends on context. Someone might say "Was it a bug or an animal?" if you said "something is chewing on my toes". If they were in biology class they would be more careful.

Although they're all from the animal kingdom, most (PIE, as far as I know) languages treat insects and humans as "not animals". In fact, many of these language consider spiders/arachnids insects, even though they're not. This is because languages are seperate from and often older than science.

I would think it sounds odd. I know insects are part of the animal kingdom. Maybe the people who use the phrase you re asking about never took a biology class.

Is it a rectangle or a square? We know that squares are rectangles. Asking for more clarification. By the nature of the question (excluding squares from rectangles) however you answer we will know more information.

In technical scientific terminology, an animal is any living thing that is not a plant, fungus, protist, bacterium, or archaebacterium (viruses are also not animals, but they are not considered "living things." However, colloquially we generally use it to refer to terrestrial animals. For birds, fish, and insects, it is more common to use those terms to refer to them than to use the word "animal." It is not incorrect to refer to them as animals, but it has a high risk of being misunderstood or unclear

Not a professional linguist or historian by any stretch, so take this all as merely the opinion of a random internet user. I'm making some leaps here. English has Germanic and Latin roots. Specifically regarding "animals", the word comes from Latin "anima" ("breath") > "animalis" ("having breath"). The sense that it's used here is more like "having a soul" or "being imparted with life", with physical breath being closely tied to those concepts. The German word for "animal" is "Tier", which is cognate with the English "deer". Modern usage of "deer" is pretty well restricted to the group of hoofed ungulates with (typically) males growing antlers each year: Bambi, Rudolph, etc. However, even Early Modern English used "deer" to essentially refer to any mammal (Shakespeare referred to "mice and rats and such small deer" in King Lear), and the Old English origin of the word ("dēor") did in fact mean any quadruped. So, bearing in mind that these words came well before scientific classification - or even understanding - of what an "animal" is, there's a rather deep-rooted connotation of an "animal" being closely tied first to mammals, then to quadrupeds, then to things that "have breath". What separated humans from other animals was supposedly our ability to reason. Insects and other "bugs" are still something *else*. Then consider religion, where Christianity had a big influence on the development of English and the coinciding culture. Christianity specifies different "kinds" of creatures that are each given separate consideration, with broad categories of beasts, cattle, fowl, fish, and *crawling things*. Humans, in Christianity, are even further removed by uniquely having a soul and being given domain over all other life, elevating us above "animals". All this to say, I think the colloquial use of "animals" being tied most strongly to non-human mammals, then gradually expanding to eventually include invertebrates, comes from the historical and cultural consideration of the relative "importance" of various types of creatures and has implications regarding what those cultures considered "alive". After all, do you consider microbes to be "animals"? What about viruses?

I'm guessing you saw my comment where I mentioned that a few minutes ago and Reddit went all feral on me?

I feel like it does sound a bit odd to say that "an insect is an animal," even though they technically are and I think most people know this, since I think most people know that essentially all life is either plant or animal

Maybe i dont understand the question, but insects are not animals, for example tiger is an animal, but mosquito is an insects, smth small and unpleasant😂

I've never heard anyone say or imply that insects are not animals, and I'm surprised that you've met multiple people who do. What on earth do those people think insects are?