I tried searching online for a list of soft-bodied insects, but I couldn’t find one. What are some insects that count as soft-bodied insects?
i did a quick search and found that these are considered soft-bodied: aphids, thrips, small flies, and mites
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if we’re counting soft bodied as “should be preserved in alcohol”, termites, adult stoneflies, immatures of all sorts, aphids, thrips, scale, etc, adult mayflies and caddisflies (probably more im forgetting about as well)
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Crickets.
Silverfish, too!
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mealybugs are quite soft.
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There’s also some insects, like large cockroaches, that have a fairly tough exoskeleton and are often preserved by pinning but have greatly expandable bodies that will shrink when they dry out so dried specimens aren’t really a good representation of the size and form of the living insect even though they sort of look ok.
Most larvae
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Yep! Caterpillars, grubs, maggots, etc immediately came to mind!
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bristletails and some other primitive insect groups as well
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Butterflies🦋
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