Is a fruit fly an insect or an animal?
It is both! An insect is just a more specific type of animal (a class), just like a mammal or a reptile. Living things are classified from large, broad groups into smaller and smaller groups. The largest of these that is important here is a kingdom. Kingdoms are broken up into phyla, which are smaller. Phyla are then broken up into classes, which are broken up into orders, which are broken up into families, etc. Fruit flies are classified into two families (Tephritidae and Drosophilidae) which are parts of the order Diptera (which includes all flies). Diptera is part of the class Insecta (which includes all insects). Insecta is part of the phylum Arthropoda (which include insects, arachnids, and crustaceans). And Arthropoda is part of the kingdom Animalia, or the animal kingdom. If you are looking for the “common fruit fly” its scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster.
