Category Insects

How the bee-eater makes its strange nest?

The nests of bee-eaters are strange constructions, like those of the fishing martin. The bee-eater used its long beak to dig out deep tunnels on the steep banks of rivers.

The tunnels open on to a room under the ground, which is the bird’s nest. The floor of the nest is covered in butterflies wings and the remains of insects.

These remains do not make a very comfortable bed but the young bee-eaters seem to like it.

The bee-eater is a tireless flier. From morning until night it goes in search of insects. While other birds help farmers by eating up grubs that live on plants, the bee-eater prefers to catch its victims as they fly along.

The only damage this bird does in hunting is to kill many bees and this angers bee-keepers.

The bee-eater with its brilliant plumage and pointed wings is related to the kingfisher. It is found in Europe and Australia.

 

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Do you know how bees produce wax and honey?

The wax produced by bees is used in making honeycombs consisting of six-sided cells into each of which the queen bee lays an egg that will eventually give birth to an insect. Other cells in the honeycomb act as storage places for honey.

Bees produce wax in very thin sheets from eight glands on their abdomens. It takes some 1,250 of these sheets to make up one gramme of wax. We can imagine the amount of hard work that goes into the construction of a honeycomb. Not only does the bee produce the wax, but it also shapes it into the hexagonal cell.

The honey is nectar from flowers which has been gathered concentrated and digested by the bees. The honey still has the scent of the flowers where the bees first found it. The queen bee is an extremely fertile animal. This insect is no more than 2 centimeters long but lays an average of 2,500 eggs a day at the rate of two eggs every minute. It does this throughout its entire life, accumulating a total of 2 million eggs.

Each egg is placed inside a hexagonal cell. If the larvae as the infant bees are called are fed on a substance known as royal jelly, they too, become queens. If they are just fed on pollen they grow into ordinary bees. But a beehive can contain only one queen. So the first queen bee to emerge from the cells and drives the old queen out. The old queen leaves with a swarm of bees still loyal to her to start another hive elsewhere.

Once the new queen begins her reign she carries out what is called her nuptial flight. As she flies through the air she is accompanied by male bees known as drones. The queen bee flies higher and higher and only the strongest of the drones can catch her and mate with her, the queen bee return from her nuptial flight fertilized and sets to laying eggs assisted by a group of bees who feed her and look after all her needs.

 

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Which spiders do Victorians mistake for a Sydney funnel-web?

Victorian funnel-web, trap-door spiders and mouse spiders do Victorians mistake for a Sydney funnel-web. The Melbourne trap-door spider, stanwellia grisea, looks similar to the Sydney funnel-web. It is found throughout the Melbourne metropolitan area. The Melbourne trap-door spider is quite aggressive, but rarely bites. If you are unlucky enough to be bitten, it can be painful but not dangerous. Mouse spiders, missulena bradleyi, are found on the outskirts of Melbourne, on the Mornington Peninsula and in the drier western areas of Victoria. They can also be aggressive but rarely bite. The bite is not known to be dangerous. Victorian funnel-web, mouse and trap-door spiders all live in burrows in the ground.

Funnel-webs burrow in sheltered sites under logs and rocks where they can find a cool and humid climate. Funnel-webs rush out of their burrow when potential prey, such as beetles, cockroaches, small lizards or snails, walk across silken trip-lines that the spider has placed around the outside of its burrow. They then return to their burrow to eat their meal.

 

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Is it true that all female spiders eat the males after mating?

No, this is not true. Some female spiders do not eat their mates, however some species will eat the male, if they are smaller or food is scarce.

“We were surprised to find that such a simple characteristic such as how small males are relative to females has such a large effect on the frequency of sexual cannibalism,” Wilder said.

Perhaps the most well-known example of spider-women eating spider-men is the black widow. But even that cannibalism case is overstated. For most of the many species of black widows, cannibalism is the exception, not the rule, according to Rod Crawford of the Burke Museum of Natural History & Culture at the University of Washington.

 

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Are daddy long-legs the most poisonous spiders in the world?

It turns out that the notion is false on both counts. But a little clarification is needed.

According to entomologists at the University of California, Riverside, the term “daddy longlegs” is commonly used to refer to two distinct types of creatures: opilionids arachnids with pill-shape bodies and eight long legs that are actually not spiders, and pholcids, which have long legs and small bodies, and thus resemble opilionids, but which are true spiders.

Pholcids, or daddy long-legs spiders, are venomous predators, and although they never naturally bite people, their fangs are similar in structure to those of brown recluse spiders, and therefore can theoretically penetrate skin. For these reasons, “This is most probably the animal to which people refer when they tell the tale,” the entomologists assert.

But is pholcids’ venom extremely poisonous? Surprisingly, because they almost never bite, scientists have never bothered to conduct research to determine their venom’s toxicity to humans . In 2004, the Discovery Channel show “Mythbusters” stepped in to fill this knowledge void. The team set out to coax a daddy longlegs spider into biting the arm of the show’s co-host, Adam Savage.

 

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Is the deadly Sydney funnel-web spider found in Victoria?

Sydney funnelweb spiders are not found in Victoria.

The two Victorian funnelweb spider species are relatives of the Sydney funnelweb spider. 

Funnelweb spiders are found around the east coast and the highlands of Australia (from Queensland to Tasmania) and small regions of South Australia. Most are found on the ground where they build burrows in moist, cool, sheltered areas, but some are tree-dwelling. They are regarded to be the most notorious of the Australian spiders due to their highly toxic and fast-acting venom. However, out of at least 40 species, only the male Sydney funnelweb spiders have been responsible for recorded deaths

Funnelweb spiders have a shiny black head and legs, and black to brown abdomen covered in fine hairs. The females are slightly larger (35 mm) than the males (30 mm).

The female produces a pillow-shaped silk egg sac, which she defends vigorously if disturbed. The spiderlings hatch about 3 weeks later, and stay with the mother for a few months. Funnelwebs reach maturity in about 2–4 years. The females live for 10 or more years, whereas the males die 6–9 months after maturity.

 

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Where did the barking spider get its name?

The barking spider, sometimes called the whistling spider, is an Australian farantula. When disturbed, they produced a sound by rubbing their palps over their fangs. The largest are found in Queensland, and some have been found in north-west Victoria.

Barking Spiders produce their barking sound by rubbing rows of spines on their palaps against spines on their lower jaw. This noise is used to deter predators.

The deserts are prone to flash flooding and Barking Spiders live in burrows with leaky rooves. The hairs on their body trap air bubbles during flash floods and the air pocket prevents them from drowning.

Barking Spiders have brush feet with claw tufts and a film of oil produced from a special gland which gives them a suction cup ability to climb smooth vertical surfaces.

 

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When was the red-back spider anti-venom discovered?

The red-back spider anti-venom was discovered in 1956. Since the development of the anti-venom for red-back spiders, latrodectus hasselti, there have virtually been no confirmed deaths from red-back bites. If you are bitten by a red-back spider, serious illness does not develop for at least three hours after the bite, giving you enough time to get to a doctor or hospital. Red-back spider bites cause intense local pain and localized sweating which may be followed by other symptoms including muscular weakness and spasm, loss of coordination, nausea and dizziness.

Compared with the placebo group, the antivenom had very little effect, but it caused allergic reactions in 4% of those receiving it (remember the risk of this comes from the fact that we’re using antibodies made by horses as the basis of the antivenom).

Based on this, Isbister says the treatment of redback spider bites should be re-evaluated. But other toxinologists quoted in the news reports highlighted that past studies have indicated the antivenom was effective.

 

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What is the scientific study of ants?

Myrmecology is the scientific study of ants and is a branch of entomology (the study of insects). There are more than 12,500 described species in the ant family that have been classified out of an estimated total of 22,000.  Ants are found everywhere in the world including areas that are temperate and tropical.  Most of the described and unknown species are located in the rainforests, however, due to the destruction of those forests, most of them will probably never be categorized.  The only land mass lacking ants are Antartica and a possibly a few remote or inhospitable islands.

Ants often are studied by engineers for biomimicry and by network engineers for more efficient networking. It is not known clearly how ants manage to avoid congestions and how they optimize their movements to move in most efficient ways without a central authority that would send out orders. There already have been many applications in structure design and networking that have been developed from studying ants, but the efficiency of human-created systems is still not close to the efficiency of ant colonies. Furthermore, there are efforts to use ant algorithms and the behavioral strategies of ants in modern management.

 

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Why are insects indispensable?

Scientists have sounded alarm over the rapid decline in insect population. In a series of papers published in the latest Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists have pointed out how human activities are posing multi-dimensional risks to the insect population. The threats include deforestation, climate change, invasive species, pesticide use, habitat loss, pollution, forest fire, urbanisation and light pollution. On an average, the decline in insect abundance is estimated to be around 1-2% per year or 10-20% per decade. These losses are seen in all continents.

Why is this a cause for concern?

Insects are useful to humankind and the environment in a number of ways. They pollinate crops we rely on for food, keep pests in check, and recycle nutrients in the soil. They have been doing many other vital ecological processes for millions of years that it would be hard to imagine a world without them. In this Eco-logical, let’s take a look at some of these beneficial insects.

Bees

Bees pollinate a third of everything we consume. These include crops, fruits, vegetables, nuts, coffee, tea, and plants such as sunflowers that are turned into oil. Crops grown as fodder for livestock are pollinated by bees. Bees play a crucial role in sustaining biodiversity. Many flowering plants depend on bees for pollination. Without bees, even birds and animals that depend on plants for food will suffer.

Honeybees, a bee species, have the distinction of being the only insect that produces a food consumed by humans. Humans also use beewax, secreted by the insects to build the honeycombs, to make candles and lubricants.

Ladybugs

Ladybugs help humans by keeping a check on pests that destroy crops. Ladybugs have a voracious appetite. They consume plant-eating insects such as aphids, spider mites and mealybugs and in doing so they help protect crops.

Ladybugs lay hundreds of eggs in the colonies of pests, and when the eggs hatch, the larvae begin to feed on the pest insects. Farmers use ladybugs for biological pest managements. This way, the bugs help reduce the use of harmful pesticides.

Praying mantises, green lacewings and dragonflies too help humans in a similar fashion. These insect eat moths, mosquitoes, roaches, flies and many other insects considered pests by humans.

Dung beetles

Have you seen a dung beetle? They have a dark, round body with hard, protective covers and they are mighty recyclers. As the name suggests, their diet is dung – yes, animal and human faeces. They actually feed on the food that pass through an animal’s body undigested. While larvae eat the solid poop, the adult beetles generally suck up the nutritious moisture from the dung. They store their food underground. By burying the dung, the beetles loosen and nourish the soil and help control fly populations. If not for such decomposers, the world would be a barren, smelly landscape filled with flies.

Other decomposer insects such as carrion beetle play a significant role of eliminating dead or rotten bodies of plant or animals from the environment by feeding on them. Some of the other carrion feeders include ants, mites, wasps and fly larvae (maggots).

Butterflies and moths

Besides being a vital element of the food chain- as pollinators and as prey for birds, bats and other insectivorous animals – butterflies and moths are important to humans for their aesthetic value. Butterflies are among the most appealing creatures in Nature, with colours and ornate patterns that are enjoyed by humans. They inspire art and literature. In some cultures, butterflies are portrayed as symbols of souls, freedom, love and peace. Other insects groups represented in art include bees, beetles, grasshoppers, and dragonflies.

Insect as food

Many species of insects are known worldwide to be part of human diet. Some important groups include grasshoppers, caterpillars, beetle grubs, winged termites, bees, worms, ant brood, cicadas, and a variety of aquatic insects. Scientific research has shown that edible insects are a very rich source of protein and other nutrients. Eating insects can, in fact, help fight hunger and food insecurity.

 

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Are spiders insects?

Technically speaking, spiders are not insects! Why aren’t they exactly? We’ll look into a few main reasons why spiders and insects are so different. But first, let’s break down what spiders and insects have in common, which is actually quite a bit.

To understand the similarities and differences between spiders and insects, we have to cover a bit of taxonomy. Taxonomy is the science of classifying all living things. Spiders, insects, fish, birds, and humans all fall into the Kingdom Animalia. Pretty much every animal is able to breathe and move, unlike plants and fungi. Additionally, animals are multicellular, unlike bacteria. Let’s dive deeper into the world of taxonomy and discover more about the classification of spiders and insects.

The next taxonomic level down is where spiders and insects lose their similarities. Spiders are in a class of animals known as arachnids. Spiders, scorpions, mites, and ticks are all different kinds of arachnids. Perhaps the biggest difference between arachnids and insects are the number of legs they have. One of the defining characteristics of spiders and other arachnids is that they have 8 legs. Insects, on the other hand, only have 6. This difference may not seem that significant, but it’s one of the most important things that separate these two classes of animals!

Next up is the number of body segments. Spiders have two segments – the abdomen, and the cephalothorax (which is a combination of a head and thorax). Insects boast three distinct segments – an abdomen, a thorax, and a head. Although they serve essentially the same functions, the body segments are another characteristic that spiders and insects do not have in common.

 

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What are gregarious locusts?

Are you thinking of these insects being particularly chatty? Well, you may not be off the mark. Yes, gregarious locusts are sociable. But they also exhibit a few other characteristics when they are gregarious. Let’s find out more about this.

What are locusts?

Locusts are insects that belong to the grasshopper family, and so, look a lot like grasshoppers. But there are a few crucial differences between them. Among those is the ability of locusts to fly long distances and also invade fields as swans, causing unimaginable damage to agricultural crops. Remember locust invasion in several parts of Africa and India in 2020, reported widely the media? However, locusts are solitary creatures just like grasshoppers, and they come together as swarms only when they are gregarious. Gregarious is a phase that occurs during a locust’s lifecycle.

When do they become gregarious?

During the dry season when there’s not much vegetation around, locusts are forced to come together on small patches of land that has a little vegetation, When that happens, the chemical serotonin gets released in their body. With this they reach the gregarious phase, during which they are sociable. According to National Geographic “Locusts can even change color and body shape when they move into this phase. Their endurance increases and even their brains get larger.” Soon, when it rains, they multiply in large numbers, the place becomes even more crowded, and they start invading agricultural lands in swarms. Reports suggest that the phase is triggered by the need for food.

There are several varieties of locusts that take over large areas of agricultural lands. However, the desert locust is the most dreaded for its country crossing abilities and for polishing off tens of thousands of acres of vegetation.

 

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Do spiders spin silk?

The word spider invariably evokes visuals of stunningly beautiful and intricate webs. But do you know not all spiders spin webs? Yes, you read that right. There are a few varieties that do not spin webs at all. However, what is interesting is that all spiders produce silk. Which means their silk has several uses other than just spinning the web. This silk a strong, flexible protein fibre – is used as a tether for safety in case of a fall; to create egg sacs: to wrap up prey: to make nests, etc.

Spiders have structures called spinnerets on their abdomen: these are their silk-spinning organs. Most of them have a cluster of spinnerets, though the exact number differs with species. The silk is a liquid before it comes out. While the fact that it has many uses is fascinating, what is intriguing about spider silk is its strength. Most of them are said to be five times stronger than steel. And a study in 2018 revealed how the silk gets its strength. When scientists analysed the silk of a specific species of spider using an atomic force microscope, they discovered that “each strand – which is 1000 times thinner than a human hair is actually made up of thousands of nanostrands”!

Trivia

There are several varieties of spider webs because different species use different patterns to construct their webs. Apparently, the webs can be categorised into orb, sheet tangle, funnel, lace, radial, and purse, based on their structure, and the webs also give a general idea about the family a spider could belong to.

 

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Can mosquitoes fly when it rains?

Mosquitoes shouldn’t be able to fly in the rain, but they still do!

Despite being roughly the same size, a single raindrop can weigh up to 50 times more than an average mosquito. So, a mosquito flying in the rain is like a person wandering about when it’s raining buses! Common sense says mosquitoes shouldn’t survive the rain, but they are a stubborn bunch.

So how do they survive the rain?

Well firstly, they do not get wet. The glassy wings and the tiny hairs on their bodies are designed to repel water. So, when a raindrop bounces off of a mosquito, one of the two scenarios may occur:

Raindrop hits wings or legs [very probable]

Raindrop hits the core body or head [unlikely]

In the first scenario, the mosquito rotates around the raindrop due to its hydrophobic body and regains normal flight with minimal effort. In other terms, the mosquitoes just shake it off

In the second scenario, the mosquito gets hit hard and drops in altitude. But it still manages to survive by taking on only a fraction of the full momentum [2–17% depending on the mosquito] of the raindrop upon impact. It does this by making the collision inelastic. The secret to this is to go with the flow

Besides, the drastic difference in mass between the mosquito and the raindrop actually becomes an advantage when we analyse the system by applying the law of conservation of momentum.

And that is how the pesky little mosquitoes fly in the rain.

 

Credit : Quora

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What is the mosquitoes job in the food chain?

Scientists are not sure. Mosquitoes are not known for eating waste. They don’t improve the soil like earthworms do. Yes, frogs prey on mosquitoes, but it is not their major food source. Mosquitoes pollinate plants since the males drink nectar, but they don’t do a lot of it.

Winegard thinks that may be mosquitoes have evolved to check the uncontrolled human population growth. But no one will accept that theory. Others say they have been put on earth to tell us that we are not as mighty as we think we are. We can be brought down by a tiny insect army. Do you agree?

So do we eradicate all mosquitoes? Biologists say they are part of the ecological cycle, so we cannot. They are there for a purpose, for balance in the eco-system. Who knows, maybe if we kill off all the mosquitoes, we may upset this balance and the natural selection of species. Winegard also points out: “Since there are 3,500 mosquito species and very few transmit diseases, perhaps the eradication of those that transmit diseases is extreme.”

 

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How can we prevent mosquito bites?

Why mosquitoes bite and what to do:

  • According to studies, mosquitoes prefer blood type O over A, B or a mix of any of them. So if your blood type is O, you find more of the insects buzzing around you.
  • Mosquitoes are attracted to bright colours.
  • Mosquitoes like the smell of beer in beer drinkers.
  • When you exercise, you let out a lot of carbon dioxide. Mosquitoes thrive on CO2.
  • Our skin usually keeps us safe from mosquitoes, but you know they attack your legs. That is because of the bacteria on your feet.
  • All this information about what is good for them is genetically coded into the mosquito brain. So the insect knows where to find food.

What you can do:

  • Sleep under a net if your area is mosquito-prone.
  • Keep surroundings clean to prevent them from breeding.
  • Keep your feet covered in places like the park, bus stands, railway stations, movie halls.
  • Wash your feet well when you reach home after school, before sitting down at the table to study.

 

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How to determine if mosquitoes are ready to feed?

Mosquitoes buzzed around even when dinosaurs roamed the earth. By sucking blood and carrying parasites of crippling diseases, these creatures have ravaged human populations, especially in Africa. Mosquito bites have caused the death and disability of millions of people, ruining the economy of some countries:

Weaponized

Mosquitoes have been used as a biological weapon during wars. According to Winegard, the Nazis purposely re-flooded the Pontine Marshes around Rome and Naples in Italy to reintroduce mosquitoes, and they spread malaria in that part of Italy during World War II. The soldiers fighting the Nazis got malaria and had to be sent back.

With all the science and technology we have now, why are we not eradicating mosquitoes?

Here is why:

They’re everywhere

Mosquitoes are everywhere – in swamps, forests, fields and homes – 110 trillion of them. They are global, and have been around for 100 million years. They are great survivors, “masters of evolutionary adaptation.” They are resilient, which means they can adapt to different weather conditions and terrains. They withstood “global showers” of DDT spray, and five types of mosquitoes are now immune to this pesticide. We all have defences in our body against disease. In the same way, mosquitoes have developed immunity to survive our attempts to kill them off.

Untiring work

Still, a lot of work has been done to tackle this relentless insect. Funding is available for research on mosquito-borne disease. Mosquito nets are given out in large numbers to people. Insecticides and malaria drugs are distributed in counties that cannot afford them. Doctors say death from malaria, the major disease caused by mosquitoes, has decreased across the world. However, there is an increase in the incidence of Zika, West Nile, and dengue.

Governments are low trying biological control of mosquitoes. This is to avoid use of pesticides. In this method, fish are bred in ponds where mosquitoes lay eggs. The fish eat the larvae. There are also plants that kill mosquito larvae. But these have had only limited success in keeping down mosquito numbers.

Climate crisis

Mosquitoes thrive when we create the right environment for them – by rearing animals and plants close to our homes, cutting down trees, letting water stagnate and keeping sewage channels open. Climate change, which is now a serious crisis, also helps breed mosquitoes. “Increased temperatures mean a longer breeding season for mosquitoes,” said Winegard in an interview.

“Canada has seen a 10% increase in mosquito-borne disease in the last 20 years. In the southern US, we’ve seen domestic cases of Zika, chikungunya, and even dengue in the last 10 years. So if temperatures rise around the planet, which increases the risk of spreading disease.”

 

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Why is the mosquito deadly?

The mosquito transmits or carries more diseases than any other insect. The six major ones spread by it are: malaria, dengue fever, chikungunya, zika fever, lymphatic filariasis and Japanese encephalitis.

Different species of the mosquito cause different illnesses. Research into human civilisation shows that mosquito-borne diseases throughout history have killed more people than man-made weapons.

In the book: The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator, historian Timothy Winegard gives us this startling fact: over the course of 200,000 years, 108 billion people have lived on Earth. Of these, 52 billion have been killed by mosquitoes. Since 2000, an average of 2 million people have died due to diseases caused by mosquitoes. And so, it is safe to sat, the insect has had a disastrous effect on our civilisation.

 

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