Do insects urinate?
Insects that live on land usually need to save or conserve water in their bodies to prevent themselves from drying out. They cannot afford to lose much water when they eliminate wastes from their bodies and thus do not urinate. They eliminate a waste called uric acid that doesn’t contain much water. Insects that live in water do not have a water conservation problem. They are surrounded by water and can afford to pass a lot of water through their systems to prevent their bodies from getting too soggy. They eliminate waste as ammonia flushed out with water. Insects produce their wastes with organs called Malpighian (mal-pig-he-in) tubules (named after a man named Malpighi). In humans, urine is produced by organs called kidneys. The Malpighian tubules are the insect version of kidneys. Uric acid and ammonia are dumped into the insects’ hind gut and mixed with other waste products instead of traveling out the body through a separate tube, as urine does.” For bees, the main waste products
