Insect Weights Consider a dataset giving the adult weight of species of insects. Most species of insects weigh less than 5 grams, but there are a few species that weigh a great deal, including the largest insect known: the rare and endangered Giant Weta from New Zealand, which can weigh as much as 71 grams. Is the shape of the distribution symmetric, skewed to the right, or skewed to the left

71 grams would definitely be an outlier on the high side, whereas "most" species would weigh much less. Thus, the graph of this distribution of weights would be skewed towards the lower side, that is, to the left.

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MrRoyal MrRoyal · Answer 2 · 2021-09-19T15:06:17+02:00

The skewness of a dataset is a measure of deviation of a random variable from the normal distribution.

The shape of the distribution is skewed to the right

From the question, we understand that:

Most of the species are less than 5 grams.
One specie weighs 71 grams

71 is a very large dataset, compared to the other weight of the species.

This means that

71 is an outlier of the dataset.
The dataset is concentrated at the left (less than 5)

When there are much data at the left of a distribution, then the distribution is positively skewed.

Hence, the shape of the is skewed to the right

See attachment for illustration of skewness of a distribution.