why are there a huge amount of different insect varieties, like in ants, but only a small amount of different varieties in animals such as crocodiles?

Question

why are there a huge amount of different insect varieties, like in ants, but only a small amount of different varieties in animals such as crocodiles?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Because there are different levels of taxonomic ranks in biology – domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and finally species. There are lots of insects and in the same time there are lots of reptiles. Crocodiles are just a part of Reptilia class. Crocodiles have roughly the same variety as mosquitoes, comparing a family to a class is wrong in the first place.