How Many Edible Insect Species Are There? A Not So Simple Question

Abstract

Insects used as food and medicine are receiving increased attention. There is a need to scrutinise recent estimates of which and how many insect species are used as we have noticed inappropriate assessments and overestimations. We review the contemporary list of edible insects of the world published online by Wageningen University and compiled by Ijde Jongema since it is widely used in the literature. Each of the 2403 entries were scrutinised, including checking name validity, verifying insect usage in cited references, and categorising each entry. Our revision indicates inappropriate assessments and inclusions such as spiders (not insects) and insect products (e.g., honeydew) when the insect itself is not used. With relevant and accepted definitions, we provide a critical assessment and estimate of the number of food insects (1611) and medicinal insects (81), which is lower than Wageningen University and Jongema’s estimate of 2111 “edible insects”. We acknowledge that our critical assessment may also be an overestimate or an underestimate and deserves further scrutiny, and we encourage a more practical use of a database of food and medicinal insects with our suggestion for a querying online curated database. We conclude that making accurate estimates is a difficult feat but that inappropriate assessments can and need to be avoided.

Insects as food and medicine: a sustainable solution for global health and environmental challenges

“…The study revealed parasites in 244 out of 300 examined insect farms. Interestingly, 206 of the cases had parasites that were pathogenic for insects only; 106 had parasites pathogenic for animals; and in 91 cases, parasites were pathogenic for humans ( 6 ). However, in humans, before being consumed, edible insects must first undergo one of four common processes: boiling, drying, toasting, or frying ( 103 ), which can kill pathogens associated with the edible insect.…”

Foraging Behaviour and Population Dynamics of Asian Weaver Ants: Assessing its Potential as Biological Control Agent of the Invasive Bagworms <em>Metisa plana</em> (Lepidoptera: Psychidae) in Oil Palm Plantations

“…More study is needed to find a comprehensive practical and cheap approach to minimize the painful bites faced by maintenance staffs in occupied plant canopies. [79,7] herbivory assists nutrient cycle See [139,140,141,142,143,144] mixed crops, luxury woods See [79,7,145] * New Britain Papua New Guinea; **NA: not available -***Invasive species 1 available online by 2009; 2 see (Yang, 1984) Eventhough the Asian weaver ant successful application in cocoa plantations in Malaysia was proven, [99], its final adoption was lately abandoned due to O. smaragdina aggressive behavior [20,21]. This nuisance factor is impossible to be eluded since man-made intervention is permanent.…”

Acheta domesticus (house cricket) as human foods ‐ An approval of the European Commission ‐ A systematic review

“…Currently, there are around 2111 species of edible insects (Jongema, 2017; Lanzerath & Schurr, 2022). However, Van Itterbeeck and Pelozuelo (2022) recalculated the number based on critical assessment and reported that there could be 1161 species of insects for food and 81 species of insects for medicinal purposes. The commonly used categories of edible insects are well established.…”