In our article we want to talk about bugs. Sometimes in a metropolis we simply don’t notice them. But this group of insects is quite numerous and deserves attention. Let's look at some types of beetles that are most characteristic of our latitudes.
Variety of beetles
The first bugs appeared on our Earth more than three hundred million years ago. These living things make up the largest group of insects. Imagine a squad consisting of more than 350,000 different types.
Sixty percent of the beetle milestones are representatives of only five families:
- Predator beetles - 45,000.
- Ground beetles - 40,000.
- Weevil beetles - 60,000.
- Barbel - 26,000.
- Leaf beetles - 35,000.
Insects have a wide habitat around the world, sometimes settling even in our houses and apartments. In our article, we want to consider some types of beetles.
May beetles
May beetles are quite common in our latitudes. Their appearance occurs in the spring - most often this occurs in late April. What types of May beetles are known? In general, the entire genus is represented by 24 species, nine of them live in Russia. Beetles are believed to appear with buds opening on oaks and leaves appearing on birches. If you look closely at the soil on warm spring days, you can see the May beetles creeping out after wintering. In the evenings, near the flowering green trees, the buzzing of insects is heard. These are the May beetles. In the daytime on plants they may not be noticed; they sit on leaflets, clinging to them with their legs. I must say that all types of May beetles harm shrubs and trees, eating their greens and flowers.
Maybug appearance
The body of the May beetle reaches a length of 2-3.5 centimeters. It is covered with chitinous shell, which protects the internal organs. We are used to the fact that the insect has a light brown tint. But in nature, different types of beetles (photos are given in the article) can have different colors, from reddish brown to black. Shades depend on the habitat of insects. Brown is characteristic of those individuals that live in open sunny places, and the inhabitants of shaded places, such as forests, have a black cover. Beetles live in Asia and Europe, preferring forest-steppes with young pines. But quite well mastered in the city, in the artificial plantings of fruit trees.
Unique insect abilities
May bugs fly at a speed of three meters per second - not bad enough for a small creature. Under good weather conditions, they overcome up to twenty kilometers per day. The flight height of the insect ranges from six to one hundred meters. The aim of the flight of all varieties of the May beetle is always green spaces. Oriental insect prefers the nearest forest or tall trees. And the western May bugs are guided during the flight to the highest objects in the distance, as a rule, these are forests.
A feature of these unique insects is the ability to find the right path. Studying the habits of the beetle, biologists caught them and moved them to a completely different place, releasing them in a couple of days. No matter how incredible it seemed, insects took the same course as if they were programmed to fly in a certain direction.
It is still unknown how the bugs are oriented. On the one hand, they determine the direction of the sun, but on the other, they fly perfectly in the evening, when it is not there. Apparently, polarized light is enough for them to understand where to move. Biologists even suggest that May beetles are able to remember the surroundings, guided by the most visible objects.
Bark beetles
Who are bark beetles? The species of these insects are very diverse. All of them live in vast territories, causing significant harm to plants, both growing and felled. All these types of beetles are pests. These include:
- Dendrocton, or spruce beetle.
- Beetle bark beetle grinder (furniture or brownie).
- Sapwood birch.
- Shashel.
- Oak big black barbel.
- Xylophagous beetle.
- Beetle typographer. In the people it is called a bark beetle.
- Wood-beetle beetle or house bark beetle (lumberjack).
Woodworm Beetles
All species of this insect are common not only in forests, but also in all places where there are accumulations of wood. They calmly appear in wooden houses, in warehouses, cottages and even in wooden furniture. Since childhood, we know another name for the insect - the lumberjack beetle, or grinder.
Different types of pest beetles can cause a lot of trouble to the inhabitants of the house. As a rule, when building a house or cottage, wooden elements are not always treated with protective equipment. If after some time you noticed something was amiss, or the creak of floorboards appeared, you should know that you had uninvited guests - wood-beetle bugs. All types of domestic pests are subject to immediate destruction, since they themselves will not leave you, but during their stay they will spoil many wooden things, including floors, frames, floors.
Carpenters have a characteristic feature of laying their larvae not in living wood, but in saw cuts. The beetle has very small dimensions - only a few millimeters. Almost all the time he is in wood, his life flows there, and he prefers dry old wood. I must say that the main harm is caused not just by bugs, but by their larvae. After all, it is they who make passages in the boards, turning them almost into dust. It is difficult to imagine, but the larvae live from five to twenty years, gnawing kilometers of moves. The dreamer himself is not capable of causing great damage. The beetles multiply rapidly, in the spring the females lay their eggs, and in a week larvae that feed on the tree appear.
Methods of dealing with woodworms
If you find damage on wooden surfaces, this indicates that a woodworm has crept into your home. This is a signal to start a fight with him. The fact is that for sure you will not immediately notice uninvited guests, and when their presence becomes obvious, the colony reaches a decent size. For the fight using various kinds of persistent insecticides having different forms (gel, spray, liquid).
Dendrocton, or spruce beetle
Dendroctons are common species of bark beetles. They can be found in Italy, England, Norway, in the countries of the Far East. The most acceptable for them is the taiga area, less often they live in the steppe regions. Cracker can make small flights. But the main way of its distribution is the transportation of infected wood.
The color of the beetle depends on its habitat, most often it is brown, black or brown. The body of the insect has an elongated elongated shape. A mustache resembles a mace.
The female parasite lays eggs inside the wood, the hatched larvae, eating, gnaw through entire networks of tunnels. Then they grow up and after some time lay their larvae.
Grinder
Grinders are parasites, like all species of bark beetles. The body of the insect is elongated, and the head is hidden in a kind of hood. It mainly has a brown or brown tint. The surface of his body is covered in down. The beetle can fly, and then populates large areas. Insects make massive migrations in early summer. Pests have their own protective mechanism, which is the ability to pretend to be dead.
Insects breed very quickly. In a year, females make four masonry. With their modest size, beetles eat a lot.
Sapwood birch
All types of beetles (photos are given by us in the article) - bark beetles - have excellent appetite. The birch sapwood was no exception. His favorite delicacy is old birch trees. But during reproduction, the parasite will not ignore young trees. If such an insect settled in a tree, then it will live no more than a few years and die.
The beetle gnaws holes in the wood, which provide ventilation of their home and become a place of fertilization of females. The length of the insect does not exceed 6.5 millimeters. There are spots on the wings. Massive bugs fly in early summer. They are currently found throughout Europe. What kind of wood do beetles prefer? Different types of birches of all ages become home to parasites. In addition to gnawing tunnels, beetles still infect trees with fungi. Since their body is covered with villi, they easily spread spores. Ill trees gradually lose their branches, and then die.
Cough
The cough is medium in size, his body is painted white. In the neck area you can see black spots among white villi. It is difficult to say which species of bark beetles are the most dangerous for plants. Moreover, larvae are usually more harmful than adults. The larva of the shashel makes numerous moves, the trunk very quickly turns into dust. In a tree, it can live up to several years, and then turns into a full-fledged beetle. Shashel has one feature that makes them difficult to detect. All holes made in the wood remain filled with wood flour. It does not spill out, and therefore it is outwardly difficult to determine the infection with such a parasite.
Black oak barbel beetle
These beetles are larger than their relatives. A distinctive feature is the insect mustache, the length of which is much longer than the size of the body. The beetle prefers oak, fir, spruce and pine. So, the largest part of these insects lives in wooded areas. Having found a new tree, the insect first destroys the young twigs, the old ones are beyond its power. Most of all, fallen trees are suitable for him.
Xylophagus and typographer
A feature of the xylophagus is that its digestive tract contains fungi and bacteria that help break down wood. Such a parasite feeds on decaying fallen trees.
As for the printing beetle, it destroys the forests of Kamchatka, the Far East, Europe, Sakhalin, Siberia. He prefers trees with a fairly thick bark, and the plant should be alive. The insect will never settle on a dead tree. Such bugs in the house are very dangerous. Types of wood do not have much significance for them if they chose a wooden suburban building. From such a house in just a year, only one trash can remain. And because of the small size of the beetle is difficult to see, because it is so dangerous.
As we can see, all the representatives of bark beetles that we examined are very dangerous beetles (species and names are indicated earlier) that harm not only dwellings, but also large forests.
Black beetles
It is believed that black bugs are the most dangerous for human habitation . The species of such insects has been familiar to us since childhood: Khrushchaks, bark beetles, cockroaches. Whichever of these parasites settles in the house, it is urgently necessary to get rid of it. But for the effectiveness of the struggle, it is necessary to determine who our enemy is.
Khrushchak beetles are quite large: about two centimeters. But their larvae are very small, and therefore they are difficult to detect. They should be sought in flour and cereals. These are their favorite places. Such spoiled products need to be thrown out, and the shelves processed with potassium permanganate or vinegar.
Black cockroaches may also appear in the house . Their danger is that they are carriers of viral diseases. If the khrushchaks and bark beetles die from insecticides, then they do not act on cockroaches. Therefore, experts recommend using the services of the sanitary service.
In order to protect yourself from the appearance of uninvited guests, you can periodically conduct preventive measures that will help keep insects out of the house. To do this, again use insecticides, which process the rear surfaces of cabinets, especially in the kitchen, baseboards, corners, pantries. Sometimes it’s easier to prevent the appearance than to get rid of it later.
The biggest beetles in the world
Once in childhood, it seemed to us that the May beetles are very large. But in fact, there are much larger insects in the world. Let's look at some types of large beetles.
Titanium is the largest insect (bug) in the world. Biologists discovered an individual seventeen centimeters long, and in nature there are also twenty-centimeter giants. The habitat of such beetles is the Amazon rainforest. Females are larger than males. They live inside the trees. With such an impressive size, beetles live only five weeks. A titan is simply a unique creature that does not have even its closest relatives. It belongs to the family of barbel, they are also called lumberjacks, which differ in beauty because of the large curved mustache. The price of one such lumberjack beetle reaches five hundred dollars.
Hercules beetle and other large insects
Hercules in length reaches sixteen centimeters, while he is not inferior to the famous lumberjack in weight. Sometimes males can be up to nineteen centimeters long, but it should be borne in mind that this figure includes the length of his horn. Hercules are residents of Central and South Africa, found on the islands of the Caribbean. It should be noted that even in prehistoric times there were no bugs more than thirty centimeters. At that time, giant dragonflies existed.
The elephant beetle also belongs to the largest insects in the world, although it is inferior in size to hercules and titanium. On average, the weight of the beetle is 35 grams, the length of the females does not exceed seven centimeters, but the males reach 12 centimeters. Such insects live in Central America, Mexico, in the moist forests of South America. A device such as a crooked horn serves as a bug for overturning the enemy, but not for killing him. Such a creature eats the fruits and fruits of trees, especially likes bananas. There were such cases when when harvesting an insect fell into boxes with fruit, and then, having received such a surprise, people were extremely surprised that the insect survived on the road.
Giant long-legged grasshoppers live in Malaysia. Once they were considered the longest insects.
But goliath has the status of the hardest bug in the world. Its weight reaches one hundred grams. The average length of males reaches nine centimeters. In different varieties, the color is different, but the main background is always black, and there are numerous white stains on it. Insects lead a daily life, eat ripe fruits and tree sap. Their usual habitat is Southeast and Central Africa.
In the CIS countries, the largest beetle is a relic barbel. The length of his body is 11.2 centimeters. This rare insect is listed in the Red Book. The beetle is found in the Far East, in China, as well as on the Korean Peninsula.
The stag beetle has its own title. It is the largest in all of Europe. It lives mainly in oak and beech European forests. Its maximum length recorded by biologists is 8.8 centimeters. It got its unusual name thanks to the jaws, which really look like deer horns. Such a device is effectively used by an insect in the fight against enemies. Females do not have horns, but males are very beautiful thanks to them.
The insect develops unusually: its larva passes a very long period from 4 to 6 years, and sometimes even up to 8. And the beetles themselves live a very short but eventful life, which takes place in the struggle for food and females. The process lasts from one to two months. These are such unusual bugs.
Types of insects are generally very diverse. They all have their own characteristics - from the smallest pests to the largest giants. It seems that they are so different, but in fact they belong to one large detachment. In many respects, their size depends on the habitat and the amount of food. Even representatives of the same species can vary in size.