What leads some people to say "it's not an animal, it's an insect"?

Because in their mind, they are in a separate category.
The same reason why some people, and I have met some, that try to convince you that trees are not plants.

I’ve never heard anyone say that. Nor that trees aren’t plants (well, no one except my 7th grade science teacher, but she was a fucking idiot).

Other than when they are playing 20 Questions, most people don’t sort the world into just three categories.

Most people consider animals as mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. Some include birds, but some don’t. Most people don’t include fish as animals. And insects and other invertebrates aren’t necessarily included.

Some taxonomically and/or syllogistically challenged people conflate animals with mammals. Perhaps what they don’t realize is that while all mammals are animals, not all animals are mammals.

An animal is any organism that can move solely by its own efforts, not just those that have fur or hair.

Ok, but what do they think they are, if not animals, though? What is the label they put on them?

@zenvelo By “And insects and other invertebrates aren’t necessarily included.” you mean in their minds, right?

Yeah, I think there’s a common alternative/unscientific taxonomy that probably varies from person to person and also by when you ask them that some people have that seems to go a bit like:

animals
__mammals
____humans
____apes
____whales
__marsupials
__reptiles
__birds
insects
__wasps
__ants
arachnids
__spiders
__scorpions
__ticks
fish
__sharks
__guppies
__trout
other acquatic categories
__crustaceans
__jellyfish

I imagine it has to do with identifying with warm-blooded land animals and not with others.

And there is something meaningful at that level of distinction, which could even be correct by scientific taxonomy but it would span two or three levels (family, phylum, class), but only the few up on their biology/zoology are liable to know the terms for that… i.e. they mean phylum Chordata, and sort of mammals, I guess? Correct animal classifications aren’t really easy to figure out.

@flo

“Ok, but what do they think they are, if not animals, though? What is the label they put on them?”

Being taxonomically unaware, they probably think that arthropods (insects, arachnids, etc.) are categorically separate from animals. They might categorize them as “bugs” or “creepy-crawlies”.

So they can justify squishing them. No one squishes a mammal.

@Zaku I don’t expect the lay people like me know about your last paragraph

@Brian1946 Ok, I get it now.

By the way,
“She does lay eggs but then she sticks them back inside her until they hatch.” What do you think that’s about? Whether I believe that or not

@flo to answer your question “What is the label they put on them?, @Brian1946 beat me to it, but most people call them “bugs”. Spiders are not insects, but they are certainly “bugs”.

Alright. I suppose it’s like believing that there is such a thing as cockroach milk

…Or is it?

@flo No, that is NOT it. They are not the same.

There were news stories cited in the cockroach milk thread about scientists having made a dairy replacement “milk” out of cockroaches.

How people categorize different creatures in their mind is not the same thing as creating a potentially efficient way to deliver protein to nutrition deficient areas of the world.

@RedDeerGuy1 I squish mammals.
I remember my grandmother, bless her heart, would almost drive off the pavement to keep from hitting a squirrel or rabbit in the road. And, to make her happy, I would do the same thing. Except I would wander her low-riding ‘60 Oldsmobile all over the road looking like I was trying to miss them, and then at the last moment, run their little asses over, then exclaim, “Oh, the poor little things!”
But down in my heart I was keeping count!!

A bug my any other name is still a bug. As the proverbial wise guy said.

@zenvelo Re. “There were news stories cited in the cockroach milk thread about scientists…”
There were plenty of news stories that are on the face of them fake, and/or discovered to be fake, regardless of the source.