The bear belongs to the order of the orthoptera of the family of insects. An adult grows to 3.5-6 cm. It is an omnivorous pest. Earthworms, caterpillars of butterflies, larvae of ladybugs, May bugs, dragonflies, pupae of various insects - all this is included in her diet. Medvedka damages all types of cultivated plants and most wild plants, gnawing their roots underground. She eats seeds, and tubers, and the roots of adult plants, and young shoots, damaging not a few pieces, but destroying all planted seedlings on the vine.
What does the bear look like?
The closest relatives of the bear are a cricket and a grasshopper, but it does not look like them at all. What does the bear look like? She has a very unusual appearance, a large abdomen makes up 2/3 of the whole body.
The powerful front of the body consists of the connected head and chest, forming the cephalothorax. It is protected by a chitinous shell, where the bear can retract its head in case of danger. The abdomen is soft, with two furry outgrowths.
The first pair of the available 6 legs is designed for digging moves underground and resembles the mole's legs turned out with a thickened lower leg. The Latin name of the bear Gryllotalpa is translated into Russian as “mole-cricket”. Young individuals have undeveloped wings, while adults have real wings that allow them to fly. Adult insects are brown in color with a lighter abdomen, the body of a young bear is slightly lighter than that of an adult.
Breeding Bears
In spring, when the soil warms up to 12 degrees Celsius, overwintered individuals crawl out of the ground. Like crickets, males and females bear to chatter the evening and night to attract the chosen one.
The female digs underground a nest with dense walls and a rounded arch. In late spring and early summer, she lays between 250 and 600 eggs in a prepared hole. You can find out what the bear’s eggs look like if you find such a nest and open it. There you can see small, like millet grains, eggs with a size of 3-3.5 mm yellowish-gray.
Since the burrow of the bear looks very unusual, it can not be confused with anything. It must be found in the soil and destroyed before the insects fill the entire area. The nest is so dense that, if detected, it can be removed from the ground with your hands and it will retain its shape. The pest digs many tunnels in the ground that go under the ground in different directions, but from the nest to the surface the tunnel is dug in a spiral line, and to prevent the nest from flooding, special outflows have been made from the main tunnel. Thus, by the way the bear’s moves look, you can understand whether they lead to the nest or not.
What does the little bear look like?
The places where these insects settled can be identified by loose ridges on the soil surface and holes similar to the outcrops of wormholes, but smaller. There is no plant above the nest, as the female gnaws all the roots, trying to make the site as warm as possible by sunlight. Medvedka protects her offspring, cleans parasite mushrooms from eggs and larvae. Larvae emerge from eggs after 2 weeks.
Before becoming an adult, the larva molts 8-9 times. It is difficult to recognize, since the larva of a bear in its first age looks not at all like an adult insect and not like representatives of subsequent ages. Larvae of this period are light, resemble spiders, but, unlike the latter, they have not 8 legs, but 6. They are blind and inactive, feed on the embryonic yolk located in their goiter. After the first molt, the larvae feed on humus, then they switch to the main diet of an adult bear.
After 25-30 days, the larvae leave the nest, and each outwardly looks the same as an adult bear, but smaller and without wings. The larva of the first age reaches a size of 15 mm, the second - 20, the third - 25, and the fourth (pronimph) - 35 mm. Thus, by how the larva of the bear looks and what size it is, you can determine its age. In early autumn, the bear population consists of adult insects (adults) and larvae of predominantly 3-4th age
Where does the bear winter
Adult bears and larvae winter in the soil in vertically arranged passages. Adults go to a depth of 1 meter, and larvae - up to 0.5 m. Overwintered larvae differ from adults underdeveloped wings. After a few more links, they become adults by the end of the second summer of their life. The number of links depends on the climate of the place. In the more southerly regions, there are fewer links, and development is faster.
Distribution area
The habitat is well-moistened soil, while it can swim, and dive, and fly, as well as running fast and digging underground tunnels perfectly. He prefers to settle near ponds in water meadows, but can live far from the water, avoiding only the driest places. Medvedka lives in all countries of Eastern and Western Europe, except for the most northern regions, in all countries of Asia, in America and North Africa.
This is a very ancient insect, which can be seen even by the way the bear bug looks. It should be noted that it is incorrect to call it a bug, they are called representatives of the winged-winged order in entomology, and the bear is a representative of the winged-winged insect order. Given this circumstance, we can talk about what a bear insect looks like. They appeared on Earth more than 3 million years ago and during this time they perfectly adapted to very different living conditions.
Chemical, agrotechnical and biological methods of destruction
By eating the larvae, the bear can reduce the number of May beetles and butterflies. In the wild, it brings enough benefits that outweigh the damage that is done to plants. But, unfortunately, it quite often settles on cultivated lands, in gardens and greenhouses. It can appear and even winter in a dunghill or compost. If you use manure without letting it overtake, the land will be infected not only by insects, but also by weed seeds.
Since the damage from the bear is more obvious on cultivated areas, over many centuries of farming, humans have developed many different ways to reduce the number of insects.
- The use of chemicals. They are very effective in controlling insects. The use of insecticides requires compliance with all instructions, which is often ignored. But the poison that kills one organism can not be harmless to another! Organophosphorus insecticides and baits treated with them are mainly used, which are buried in the soil (Phenaxin Plus, Medvetox). In spring, before planting plants, baits are used in greenhouses, and in autumn, when the crop is harvested and the bear is still active, they use pyrethroids for fumigation, that is, fumigation of a greenhouse using substances safe for people and animals, but killing insects.
- Agrotechnical measures used to control pests. These methods include techniques that create adverse conditions for pests. This method is cheaper than others and lays the foundation for organic agricultural products. An example is loosening and digging the soil, observing optimal planting dates, weed control, and the use of mineral fertilizers.
- The use of biological products to destroy the bear. Theoretically, they have no competitors in terms of effectiveness. The basic principle is the use of specially formulated drugs that cause fungal or parasitic diseases in insects.
- There is another technological method that repels a bear from small areas. On your site you can install ultrasonic “repellers”. They must always work, otherwise the insects will return to the site.
Folk and mechanical methods of struggle
Among the popular methods of pest control there are very effective methods. These include the use of decoctions of different plants, planting plants that pests cannot tolerate, the use of traps. You can dig into the ground banks filled with water for 2/3, the bear that got there will not be able to get out on its own. They do not like the smell of some flowers, such as marigolds and chrysanthemums. An interesting way to scare away is to install vane turntables on the site. On thin poles you can fix several of them. When they rotate, the vibration is transmitted to the soil, and if there is a "bug" of the bear, he leaves the site.
The most ancient way is the mechanical destruction of the bear. Insects are manually collected and destroyed, traps are dug up, and pests are cleaned of manure. All of them are very effective, but very laborious and unpleasant, as the bear looks frightening. These methods are suitable for small areas.
Attraction to the site of natural enemies
The use of natural enemies is not a very popular method, they do not bring the same moral satisfaction as mechanical ones, but they are the most logical. Such methods include attracting birds, lizards, and frogs to the site. The teddy bear eats small bitterns, starlings, rooks, as well as lizards and shrews. Often they are all perceived on the site as intruders, and many of them simply need to be protected, since the benefits of their presence are obvious.
What to do if there are bears on the site
The best are methods that take into account the nature of the pest. In order to get rid of the bear, it is necessary in spring and early summer to carry out the cultivation of row-spacings to a depth of 15-20 cm to detect and destroy insect nests. In the same period, you can leave manure heaps to attract females, and when they make a nest there, scatter manure and destroy the nests. In autumn, when a bear cub seeks refuge for wintering, digging holes in the ground with a depth of 0.5-0.7 m and filling them with manure is effective. Such pits are attractive to them, they climb into manure, and when frost begins, manure must be removed from the pits and scattered on the surface of the soil. Both adult insects and larvae cannot stand the cold and die.
When laying greenhouses, it is necessary to carefully look through the soil to detect adult insects or nests; around the greenhouse, it is necessary to dig hunting grooves. From manure intended for greenhouses, you need to choose and destroy the bear. Knowing what a bear looks like, you definitely will not lose sight of it.