(II.)
        Almost everywhere you look, you'll find one — or dozens — of the six-legged insects, such as ants, bees, flies, beetles (甲蟲) and much more of them. They all have a body composed (組成) of three parts — head, thorax (胸廓) and abdomen (腹部) — inside a hard exoskeleton (外骨骼). All insects also have a pair of antenna (觸鬚), compound (複合的) eyes and three pairs of legs. Here are some amazing facts about insects.
        Scientists have catalogued (編成目錄) about 1.5 million species (物種) of organisms (生物) on the planet and found that insects are about two-thirds of them. Reasons for insects' success (成功) might be their tiny (微小) size, which both makes hiding easier and saves energy (能量)； protective (具保護性的) exoskeletons； most of them have wings, which can keep them away from danger.
       If you go outside in a warm day, when you look down you'll easily find an ant or two or even much more of them. Of course, it's not uncommon to see ants when indoors, either. The famous biologists (生物學家) Bert Hölldobler and E. O. Wilson estimated (估計) in their book, "The Ants,” that there are10 quadrillion (萬億) ants live on the planet at any given moment. That's about 1.4 million ants per human, based (基於) on a world population (人口) of 7.3 billion (十億) people.
       Although insects can be found just about anywhere on Earth, there's one continent (大陸) where they barely (幾乎不) have a foothold (立足處): Antarctica (南極洲). In fact, only one true species of insect, a wingless midge (蠓) called Belgica antarctica, calls the southernmost (最南端) continent home. The tiny insect is only 0.08 to 0.23 inches (0.2 to 0.58 centimeters) long, but it's still the Antarctic's largest and only terrestrial (陸生的) insect. It can stop its body fluids (液體) from freezing (凍結), and its purple-black color can soak (吸飽) up as much sunlight as it can to keep warm.
       Seeing as you still can't escape (逃脫) insects even in Antarctica, there is one place where you can go to be totally free of the six-legged creatures (生物). That place is the 70% of the Earth's surface (表面) covered by the ocean. Why have insects failed to set up shop in the biggest biosphere (生物圈) on the planet? No one really knows why, but it is suggested that the oceans lack (缺乏) the plants for food and the shelters (藏身處) that are found on land. Another possible explanation (解釋) is that a cousin of insects, the crustaceans (甲殼動物), have largely made the ocean their home and left no more room for insects.
       Talk about creating a dynasty (朝代). Termite (白蟻) queens can produce (生產) 6,000 to 7,000 eggs in a single day. An entomologist (昆蟲學家) once recorded a queen of the termite laying (產卵) eggs at a rate (速率) of one every 2 seconds, which would add up to 43,000 a day, assuming (假設) she never took a break. No wonder insects have become such a successful species on our planet.
【題組】39. According to the article, about how many of thecatalogued species of organisms on earth are insects?
(A) One million.
(B) One million five hundred thousand.
(C) Five hundred thousand.
(D) Ten thousand only.