Like, say they have a lifespan of a week. If they die out in winter because of lack of food or cold temperatures, how come we see them again in the spring? Where do they come from?
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Week long lifespan is only for adult bugs. They either lay eggs that either survive the winter or their eggs incubate into larva (like caterpillars) or nymph (basically a “baby insect”) that digs underground and hibernates during the winter. Cicadas, for example, can live for several years in this stage, only to reach adult form, emerge, breed and then die within weeks.
They survive by breeding in piles. Generally speaking, the shorter an animals lifespan, the more babies it will have. Not by age, but just lifespan in general. Animals that are born in dangerous environments do it too
Most insects do have a kind of hibernation. They can lower their body temperature and activity increasing their livespan from a few days normally to a few months. This allows them to survive the winter without breeding.
It varies but all insects (and many other invertebrates) have lifecycles egg > larvae > pupae > adult.
Some insects can live a long time in their adult state. Tropical beetles aren’t bothered by the weather for instance and can live for years. Ants, bees and other social insects have workers that live for months or years, sheltered inside the colony.
Longer lived insects often find shelter inside wood, under leaves, underground etc. to escape the frost as they hibernate for spring.
But for many other insects, the adult stage only lives for a few days or weeks as it is only intended to find a mate and reproduce before dying. Junebugs, for instance, only live a few weeks to reproduce but their larvae sometimes spend as much as 11 years underground eating roots to gather the energy for their final transformation into a reproducing adult.
For these species, the adults generally come out during spring or summer and don’t need to survive winter. Their eggs and larvae will do that in sheltered spots.
For some species, the adult is only intended to live such a short time that it doesn’t even have a functioning mouth, it gets all the energy it needs from the stored energy reserves the larvae collects before transformation.
Others, like butterflies, spend a while feeding and looking for a mate while they collect the energy they need to produce eggs.
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