Class
Insecta (Insects)
Ontholestes cingulatus. Photo: (c) Anthony Zukoff, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA)
Insects or Insecta (from Latin insectum, a calque of Greek ἔντομον , “cut into sections”) are by far the largest group of hexapod invertebrates within the arthropod phylum. Definitions and circumscriptions vary; in one approach insects comprise a class within the Phylum Arthropoda. As the term is used here, it is synonymous with Ectognatha.