In our article we want to talk about beetles. Sometimes in the conditions of a metropolis, we simply do not 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 beetles appeared on our Earth more than three hundred million years ago. These living creatures make up the largest group of insects. Imagine a squad of over 350,000 different species.
Sixty percent of all beetles come from just five families:
- Predatory Beetles – 45,000.
- Beetles – 40,000.
- Weevils – 60,000.
- Mustache - 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.
Maybugs
May beetles are quite common in our latitudes. Their appearance occurs in the spring - most often this occurs at the end of April. What types of May beetles are known? In general, the wholethe genus is represented by 24 species, nine of them inhabit the territory of Russia. It is believed that beetles appear with bud break on oaks and leaves on birches. If you look closely at the soil on warm spring days, you can see May beetles crawling out after wintering. In the evenings, near the flowering green trees, you can hear the buzzing of insects. These are May beetles. During the day, they may not be noticed on plants; they sit on leaves, clinging to them with their legs. I must say that all types of May beetles harm shrubs and trees, eating their greens and flowers.
Appearance of the cockchafer
The body of the May beetle reaches 2-3.5 centimeters in length. It is covered with a chitinous shell that 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 color is typical for those individuals that live in open sunny places, and inhabitants of shaded places, such as forests, have a black cover. Beetles live in Asia and Europe, preferring forest-steppes with young pines. But they are quite well mastered within the city, in artificial plantations of fruit trees.
Unique Insect Abilities
The cockchafers fly at three meters per second, not bad enough for a small creature. Under good weather conditions, they cover up to twenty kilometers per day. The height of the flight of an insect ranges from six to one hundred meters. The purpose of the flight of allvarieties of cockchafer are always green spaces. The eastern insect prefers the nearest forest or tall trees. And western May beetles navigate during the flight to the highest objects in the distance, as a rule, these are forests.
The peculiarity 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 after a couple of days. Incredible as it may seem, the insects kept on their course, as if they were programmed to fly in a certain direction.
It is still unknown how the beetles navigate. On the one hand, they determine the direction by the sun, but on the other hand, they fly perfectly even in the evening when it is not there. Apparently, polarized light is enough for them to understand where they need to move. Biologists even suggest that May beetles are able to remember the surroundings, focusing on the most noticeable objects.
Bark beetles
Who are bark beetles? The types of these insects are very diverse. All of them live in vast areas, causing significant damage to plants, both growing and cut down. All these types of beetles are pests. These include:
- Dendrokton, or spruce beetle.
- Bark beetle grinder (furniture or brownie).
- Birch sapwood.
- Shashel.
- Oak large black barbel.
- Xylophagus beetle.
- Beetle-typographer. People call it the bark beetle.
- Carpenter beetle orbark beetle (woodcutter).
Carpenter 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, warehouses, cottages and even in wooden furniture. Since childhood, we have known another name for the insect - the woodcutter beetle, or grinder.
Different types of pests can cause a lot of trouble to the inhabitants of the house. As a rule, when building a house or a summer house, wooden elements are not always treated with protective agents. If after a while you notice something was wrong, or the floorboards creak, just know that you have uninvited guests - woodworm beetles. 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, ceilings.
Woodworms have a characteristic feature of laying their larvae not in living wood, but in saw cuts. The beetle has a very small size - only a few millimeters. Almost all the time he is in wood, his life flows there, and he prefers a dry old tree. I must say that the main harm is caused not by beetles, but by their larvae. After all, it is they who make passages in the boards, turning them almost into dust. It is hard to imagine, but the larvae live from five to twenty years, gnawing through kilometers of passages. The woodworm itself is not capable of inflicting great damage. The beetles multiply rapidly, in the spring the femaleslay eggs, and a week later the larvae appear, feeding on the tree.
Woodworm control methods
If you find damage on wooden surfaces, then this indicates that a woodworm has made its way into your home. This is the signal to start fighting 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, various kinds of persistent insecticides are used, having different forms (gel, spray, liquid).
Dendrokton, 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. The beetle is able to make small flights. But the main way it spreads is through 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 oblong shape. And the mustache resembles a mace.
The female parasite lays its eggs inside the wood, hatching larvae, eating, gnaw through entire networks of tunnels. Then they grow up and after a while lay their larvae.
Grinder
Grinders are parasites, like all types of bark beetles. The body of the insect is elongated, and the head is hidden along a kind of hood. Basically it has a brown or brown tint. The surface of his body is covereddown. The beetle can fly, and then inhabits large areas. Insects make mass migrations at the beginning of summer. Pests have their own defense mechanism, which is the ability to play dead.
Insects reproduce very quickly. Females make four clutches per year. With their modest size, the beetles eat a lot.
Birch sapwood
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 birches. But during reproduction, the parasite will not bypass young trees. If such an insect has 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 for their home and become a place for fertilization of females. The length of the insect does not exceed 6.5 millimeters. There are spots on the wings. Beetles fly en masse in early summer. They are now found all over Europe. What kind of wood do beetles prefer? Different types of birches of all ages become a home for parasites. Besides the fact that they gnaw out tunnels, beetles also infect trees with fungi. Since their body is covered with villi, they easily spread spores. Diseased trees gradually lose their branches, and then die.
Shashel
Shashel is medium in size, his body is painted white. In the neck area, black spots can be seen among the white villi. It is difficult to say which types of bark beetles are the mostdangerous to plants. Moreover, the larvae usually do more harm than adults. The larva of the shashel makes numerous moves, very quickly the trunk turns into dust. It can live in a tree for 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 are left 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 longhorn beetle
These beetles are larger than their relatives. A distinctive feature is the mustache of an insect, the length of which is much greater than the size of the body. The beetle prefers oak, fir, spruce and pine wood. This means that most of these insects live in wooded areas. Having found a new tree, the insect first destroys the young branches, the old ones are beyond its power. Fallen trees suit him best.
Xylophage and typographer
A feature of the xylophage 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 typographer beetle, it destroys the forests of Kamchatka, the Far East, Europe, Sakhalin, and Siberia. He prefers trees with fairly thick bark, and the plant must be alive. An insect will never settle on a dead tree. Such bugs in the house are very dangerous. Types of wood do not matter much to them if they have chosenwooden outbuilding. Only one dust can remain from such a house in just a year. And because of the small size of the beetle, it is difficult to see, which is why it is so dangerous.
As we can see, all the representatives of bark beetles we have considered are very dangerous beetles (species and names are indicated earlier), causing harm not only to dwellings, but also to large forests.
Black beetles
It is believed that black beetles are the most dangerous for human habitation. Types of such insects have been familiar to us since childhood: beetles, bark beetles, cockroaches. Whichever of these parasites has settled in the house, it is urgent to get rid of it. But for the struggle to be effective, we need to determine who our enemy is.
Hrushchak beetles are quite large: about two centimeters. But their larvae are very small, and therefore difficult to detect. They should be sought in flour and cereals. These are their favorite places. Such spoiled products should be thrown away, and the shelves should be treated with potassium permanganate or vinegar.
Black cockroaches may also appear in the house. Their danger is that they are carriers of viral diseases. If hrushchaks and bark beetles die from insecticides, then they do not work 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 carry out preventive measures that will help keep insects out of the house. To do this, again, insecticides are used, which are used to treat the back surfaces of cabinets, especially in the kitchen, baseboards, corners, pantries. Sometimes it's easier to get in the wayappearance rather than being discarded.
The biggest beetles in the world
Once in childhood, it seemed to us that the cockchafers are very large. But in fact, there are much larger insects in the world. Let's look at some types of large beetles.
Titan is the largest insect (beetle) in the world. Biologists have discovered an individual seventeen centimeters long, and twenty-centimeter giants are also found in nature. The habitat of such beetles is the Amazon rainforest. The females are larger than the males. They live inside trees. With such an impressive size, the beetles live only five weeks. Titan is just a unique creature that does not even have the closest relatives. It belongs to the mustache family, they are also called lumberjacks, which are distinguished by their beauty because of their large curved mustaches. The price of one such woodcutter beetle reaches five hundred dollars.
Hercules beetle and other large insects
Hercules in length reaches sixteen centimeters, while it 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 beetles more than thirty centimeters. During that period, giant dragonflies existed.
The elephant beetle also belongs to the largest insects of the world, although it is inferior in size to Hercules and titanium. Averagethe 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 humid forests of South America. Such a device as a crooked horn serves the beetle to overturn the enemy, but not to kill him. Such a creature feeds on the fruits and fruits of trees, especially loves bananas. There were cases when, during the harvest, an insect fell into boxes along with fruits, 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. They were once considered the longest insects.
But the goliath has the status of the heaviest beetle in the world. Its weight reaches one hundred grams. The average length of males reaches nine centimeters. Different varieties have different colors, but the main background is always black, and there are numerous white stains on it. Insects are diurnal, feeding on overripe fruits and tree sap. Their usual habitat is Southeast and Central Africa.
In the CIS countries, the relic barbel is the largest beetle. Its body length 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 European oak and beech forests. Its maximum length, recorded by biologists, is 8.8 centimeters. It got its unusual name fromjaws that really look like deer antlers. The insect effectively uses such a device in the fight against enemies. Females do not have horns, but males are very beautiful thanks to them.
The insect develops unusually: its larva goes through a very long period from 4 to 6 years, and sometimes 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 takes one to two months. Here are some unusual beetles.
Types of insects are generally very diverse. All of them 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 ways, their size depends on the habitat and the amount of food. Even members of the same species can vary in size.
