General concept of insects. Adaptation and habitat of insects Longest diapause

The class of insects is the most numerous on Earth: it has about one million species. Some of its representatives are considered the oldest inhabitants of the planet. They inhabited it 400 million years ago. This class managed to survive and survive the cataclysms that have happened on Earth more than once. Due to the peculiarities of their life activity, insects today are a progressive group of animals.
The information about insects presented in the specialized literature is striking in the number of unusual and little-known facts. These same sources indicate that the life of wildlife on the planet has not been fully studied.

The most important units of the class

The life of insects living on the planet is under the close attention of zoologists. To make it easier to study the animals, they were divided into groups.

The classification was based on the following characteristics:

• nature of development - direct (without metamorphosis), indirect (with metamorphosis);
• structural features of the oral apparatus - sucking, gnawing, licking, gnawing-sucking;
• the presence and structure of wings.

Hymenoptera

Prominent representatives of this order are bumblebees, bees, wasps, and ants. They are characterized by a complete development cycle, the presence of two pairs of reticulated wings, sucking and lapping mouthparts. These animals received another name - social insects.

Their way of life has always been interesting to humans. Today it is known about the existence of twenty thousand species of bees, many of which are domesticated by people to produce such a valuable product as honey.
But not everyone knows that these insects have to work hard throughout their lives. In order for 500 grams of honey to form in a honeycomb, one bee needs to make 10 million flights from the hive to the flower and back. At the same time, a characteristic buzzing sound is heard. It appears because insects cut through the air by flapping their wings frequently. Sometimes their frequency reaches 11,500 strokes per minute. But this is not a record either. Stinging insects are known that are capable of performing more than 62 thousand wing beats in one minute.
Man, having studied the habits of honey bees, learned to create favorable conditions for them to receive bee products. best quality and in large volumes.
Wasps and bumblebees are also social insects. Their families do not live long - only one summer. Only the young queen remains for the winter; the old one dies. Together with her, at the end of summer, males and working insects end their lives.
Representatives of the order Hymenoptera are excellent pollinators.

Cockroaches

Red and black cockroaches are the main representatives of the squad. They settle in those places where a person stops caring about the cleanliness of his home. These dangerous insects can cause the spread of certain infectious diseases. Cockroaches enter places where human food is stored and contaminate them with waste.

A female cockroach can lay about two million eggs per year. From them white small insects similar to adults are born. After some time, they molt, acquiring the coloration of adults.

Lepidoptera

All types of insects belong to the order and always touch the life of this particular group of fauna representatives. Butterflies vary in wing color and size. For example, there are insects that are sometimes mistaken for birds - such is the wingspan of these butterflies.

Some species are only nocturnal. Butterflies are known to taste food in an unusual way- hind legs. The structure of their wings has become the subject of study in more than one scientific laboratory.

Orthoptera

Locusts, crickets and grasshoppers belong to the order of this group and are distinguished by an incomplete development cycle (without transformation), the presence of a gnawing mouthpart, and two pairs of special wings, which scientists call elytra.

The most dangerous insects of this order are locusts. The species has the ability to reproduce massively. Gathering in huge swarms (the number can reach 50 billion individuals), locusts move long distances. All vegetation along the route of the hordes of insects is destroyed. A swarm of locusts eats in one day the same amount of food that a multimillion-dollar city, such as New York, for example, would need for the same period. The damage caused by locusts is in some cases irreparable.

Beetles

The order has another name - Coleoptera. Typical representatives include the rhinoceros beetle, the May beetle, ladybug, ground beetle, weevil and many others. The life of insects of this order is full of mysteries, secrets and legends. About 400 thousand are known on earth. The largest representative of the order, the titan beetle, reaches a length of seventeen centimeters. There are also species whose length is several millimeters.

New ones appear regularly in the literature Interesting Facts about insects of this group. For example, the stag beetle grows up to eight centimeters in length. Its larvae develop in rotting tree stumps for five years. During this time they reach large sizes - about 14 centimeters.
Many beetles are pests. They destroy plantings of cultivated plants, forests, food, wood products, leather and other natural materials.

It is known that the dragonfly lives on Earth. She is capable of moving at a speed of fifty-seven kilometers per hour.
There are countries where insect dishes are a real delicacy. Food made from fried crickets and locusts is rich in proteins, carbohydrates and other beneficial substances.
Grasshoppers can jump a distance that is more than forty times their body length.
Most house flies live in the area where they were born, but there are cases when insects move more than forty kilometers from their native places. It turns out that flies cannot resist the force of the wind and travel along with air currents.
Scientists have found that on average, an area equal to a square kilometer is home to about 26 billion different insects, which differ from each other in their lifestyle, food preferences, methods of development,
Modern science cannot know everything about insects for the reason that there are still unknown species. But even those described by scientists have not yet been fully studied. The world of insects is the most mysterious and little-studied part of living nature.
Interesting facts about insects and their knowledge teach a person to treat nature correctly, understand its laws, and not harm the environment.

Science on currently About 1 million species of insects are known, and, according to experts, the total number of species reaches 10 million. Every year from 3 to 10 thousand new species are described. Most discoveries are made in tropical regions that are poorly studied and richest in insects, however, there are enough “white spots” in Siberia, and the list of Siberian insect species is updated every year. Thus, insects are the largest group of organisms currently living on Earth. There are more of them than other animals and plants combined.

Insects are divided into 32 orders, of which the most numerous are beetles (Coleoptera), belonging to 125 families, including 500,000 species. In fact, every fourth of all animals is a beetle.

The distribution of insects is very uneven. For example, approximately 40 thousand species live in India, and only about 450 species live in Greenland. Insects are found in the polar zones of the Arctic and Antarctic, which are active during the short period of the polar summer.

The oldest insects
Rhyniella procursor was found in Tayside, Scotland, with an estimated age of 370,000,000 years; Sphecomyrma freyi (1967), found in New Jersey, USA, estimated to be 110,000,000 years old; Archeolepis (1985, moth), found on the Dorset coast, England, estimated to be 180,000,000 years old.

Insects are the first living creatures,
which appeared on Earth more than 400 million years ago. Since then, they have survived five massive disasters and have proven to be more resilient than tyrannosaurs.

Number of insects
The estimated number of insect species, according to various estimates, ranges from 3 to 30 million species. There are approximately 250 million insects for every person on Earth. Scientists estimate that there are another 5-10 million species unknown to science.

Insects underfoot
On the planet, more than 26 billion insects live in inhabited areas in every square mile. In a mixed forest, there are from 500 to 6000 individuals of various insects per 1 sq. km of area. The biomass of insects per 1 hectare of forest is 100-200 kg. In the steppe, 2 million insects of 340 species live on 1 hectare of area, and on the same area of ​​​​a wheat field there are already 3.5 million, but only 142 species.

The number of insects that gather in large clusters

...simply amazing. In 1943, Professor Salt established that an acre of arable land in Great Britain contained over 1,000,000,000 arthropods (Arthropods), of which 400,000,000 were insects and 666,000,000 were mites, the remaining 38,000,000 were millipedes (Myriapoda, in including Centipeda and Millipeda). One scientist estimates that there are 100,000,000 Springtails per square meter of cropland in Iowa. In Africa, Orthoptera insects (namely the locust Schistocerca gregaria) gather in flocks of 28,000,000,000 individuals. While one locust weighs 2.5 g, the entire swarm weighs 70,000 tons.

Ant colonies are home to about 50 members, but the famous supercolony of the Japanese ant Formica yessensis, which is located on the coast of one of the Japanese islands, has 1,080,000 queens and 306,000,000 worker ants living in 45,000 interconnected anthills.
According to scientists, 30% of the biomass that makes up all the animals in the Amazon basin is ants. Other researchers estimate that ants make up 10% of the biomass worldwide, with termites accounting for the other 10%. Thus, these insects account for 20% of the biomass on the planet.

Where do insects live?

The ancestors of insects were already terrestrial organisms, which is why there are no inhabitants of seas and oceans among them. The water bug - the sea water strider (Halobates) - is perhaps the only insect currently known to live in the sea.
Larvae of flies (Diptera) and beetles (Coleoptera) live in coastal waters near rocky shores.

Ephydra flies colonize the most unusual habitats - the larva of Ephydra hyans lives in Mono Lake (California), which has the same salinity as the Dead Sea. Psilopa larvae live in oil pools, and Scatella thermarum larvae and adults are found in Iceland during the short summer. Adult insects Scatella thermarum live on the surface of masses of plankton that drift across the world's oceans, larvae live in the lower layer of plankton and in the water nearby, and can exist at a water temperature of +480C. People are like that hot water can't stand it.

Widest habitat

The American white butterfly Hyphantria cunea from the bear family, the pest of all insects has the most wide range a habitat. Its caterpillar feeds on 636 species of plants that grow in different parts of the globe. It is inferior to the gypsy moth butterfly and the Japanese beetle. The gypsy moth butterfly feeds on plants whose parts contain tannin.

Insect color vision
Insects enjoy the diversity of colors on the planet. They have color vision - a rarity in the animal world.

Blood is white
Adult insects have tracheal breathing, and their hemolymph is colorless, as it carries gases. True, some mosquito larvae have bright red blood due to hemoglobin.

Upper limit of hearing in insects
Daytime peacock eye caterpillar 1,000 Hz Grasshopper 90,000 Hz.

Animal with the biggest brain

The animal with the largest brain in relation to its body is the ant.

Insects are carnivorous
About a third of all insects are carnivores, and most hunt for food rather than feed on carrion and waste.

Records of the world of insects

One of the reasons for the species diversity of insects is their small size. The most common sizes of insects are from 3 to 20 mm. The smallest, such as beetles, do not exceed 0.2 mm, which is not much larger than a slipper ciliate. However, in the world of insects there are also real giants.

Title the most massive insect belongs to the Actaeon beetle (Megasoma acteon) from South America, the males of which have a body 9 cm long and 5 cm wide with a thickness of 4 The largest insect - the true weta (Deinacrida heteracantha) - lives in New Zealand. Its weight is up to 80 g, the size is the size of a mouse. The world's largest beetle is a rare insect from South America, the lumberjack titan, 160 mm, sometimes reaching 220 mm in length (not counting the antennae). The Hercules beetle Dynastes hercules also reaches a length of 16 cm, but is inferior to the woodcutter in weight.

The longest insects– tropical stick insects belonging to the order of ghosts – (Plasmodea) - have a length of up to 33 cm. Female stick insect Pharnacia kirbyi may have a body over 36 cm long. This stick insect lives in the rain forests of. Kalimantan (Borneo). Some butterflies have a wingspan of 32 cm and cover an area of ​​over 300 sq. km. They can be considered the largest insects.

And although the giants of the insect world live in the tropics, in our country there are also large insects: swallowtail butterflies, some peacock eyes And cocoon worms, ground beetles from the genus Carabus, swimmers(Dytiscus), some barbel(black fir, aspen creaking, etc.), May beetle, large pine borer, rocker dragonflies, grasshoppers, broad-winged rattlefish.

The smallest insect

Record holders for the number of wing flaps
Tiny stinging insects biting midges, flap their wings at an incredible speed of 62,760 times per minute.

Insect Abilities

Insects are perfectly adapted to living on land. Their bodies cope well with one of the main problems of living in a terrestrial environment - protection from drying out, which is achieved by several degrees of protection and saving moisture. First of all, this is the presence of the epicuticle, a thin wax-like film on the surface of the integument, which prevents the evaporation of water. Air exchange is carried out very economically: tracheal breathing is more efficient than pulmonary breathing and conserves moisture, since the respiratory openings (spiracles) are very small in size and can be closed. In the Malpighian vessels, which make up the excretory system of insects, uric acid crystals are produced, which bind a minimal amount of water. Moreover, in the hindgut of insects there are special rectal glands that suck water from the formed excrement and return it to the body cavity. And finally, the eggs of many insects are also well protected from moisture loss.

Smell and vision

The sense of smell plays a major role in the sexual behavior of insects. For example, a male silkworm(Bombyx mori) flies from afar to the smell of a female, but does not react at all to the female herself, who is nearby under a glass cover. But in the lives of some species, vision is more important. For example, a male firefly (Photinus) in flight sends flashes of light into space every 5-6 seconds, and a wingless female sends response light signals, indicating its location. In general, the eyes of insects receive a clear image of an object from a distance of 10 cm, but react to other people’s movements from 2 m.

How do insects breathe?

Insects do not have lungs, and their body is supplied with oxygen through microscopic pores in the chitinous shell. The chitinous shell is a kind of distributed lung. The breathing of insects resembles the breathing of mammals; their tracheal tubes quickly compress and unclench, providing a 50% renewal of oxygen within one second (this is, for example, the indicator of a person performing physical exercise medium intensity).

Jumping Champion

Six-millimeter penny cicada (Philaenus spumarius) can jump to a height of 20 centimeters, which in human equivalent is 210 meters. The athletic abilities of this insect are unparalleled. The powerful, muscular limbs of cicadas act on the principle of a catapult - they straighten out at a speed of four thousand meters per second and send the beetle high up. Their jump is higher than that of a flea, and they also accelerate their much heavier body four times faster.

Best runner

American cockroaches (Periplaneta americana)- large (almost four centimeters long) red creatures are the fastest runners of all land insects. In 1991, a world record was set: a representative of Periplaneta americana reached a speed of 5.4 km/h or 50 cockroach body lengths per second! But his uniqueness is by no means limited to his sprinting abilities.

Flight speed

Among all invertebrates, only insects have wings and have mastered the air environment. Flight is an efficient and economical means of transportation. The ability of insects to disperse is impressive. The migrations of migratory locusts, described in the Bible, are especially well known. Locusts easily cross the Mediterranean Sea, and swarms of flying locusts have been observed from ships a thousand kilometers from the coast.

There is reliable data regarding the flight speed of locusts Schistocerca gregaria– 33 km/h and bollworm Helicoverpa zea – 28 km/h. Many insects fly faster, but there is no verified data on them. The highest speed is in the upsilon moth Agrotis ipsilon, which can reach 97 and even 113 km/h. The flight speed of an insect depends on its mass, air temperature, humidity, solar radiation, wind speed, oxygen saturation of the air, flight angle and even habitat isolation.

Flight speed of some insects: km/h

Hornet - 25.2
Bee - 22.4
Horsefly - 22.4
Locust - 16
Carrion fly - 11
Wasp - 9
Khrushch - 9
Cabbage - 9
Housefly - 6.4
Malaria mosquito - 3.2
Bumblebee – 3
One-day event – ​​1.8
Grasshopper – 1.8

Reproduction intensity

The shorter the life of an insect, the faster it becomes sexually mature and bears offspring, the faster it adapts to changes in the natural environment, including insecticides. The intensity of reproduction depends on two factors: environmental temperature and food abundance. The highest intensity of reproduction in homoptera is in aphids. Rhopalosiphum prunifolia a generation can be produced in 4.7 days at a temperature of 25 C. Other aphids, scale insects and leafhoppers also reproduce at a high rate. (Aphidina and Cicadina), related to Homoptera

Breeding Champion

One aphid (Hyalopterus) over the summer it produces 12 parthenogenetic generations of 50 individuals each. The biological potential of aphids is 5015 individuals. With an unlimited amount of food and the absence of predators, the mass of descendants of one cabbage aphid (Brevicoryne brassicae) in one year could amount to 822 million tons, which is three times the mass of the entire human population of the globe. The mass of the offspring of one aphid will be comparable to the mass of 3 billion people.

Two penises, one spare
The male earwig has two penises, each longer than the earwig itself. These organs are very fragile and break easily, which is why the insect is born with a spare one.

Butterfly's plume

The luxurious plume of the male Saturnia butterfly serves to capture odorous pheromone molecules.

The passion of a male emperor moth can take him very far, approximately two kilometers. It is at this distance that they feel their future girlfriend. This is the power of love.

Born only after 17 years

The breeding cycle of the seventeen-year cicada living in the southern United States is unusual. From the eggs laid by the female on plants, larvae emerge, which burrow into the soil and live there, feeding on plant roots, for 17 years. And only then the cicadas, resulting from the larvae, come out in masses and begin to reproduce. So for this species, the breeding season occurs once every 17 years.

The smallest eggs

Insect cloned

Ability to tolerate dehydration

As a result of laboratory tests, it was found that the African chironomid insect Polypedilum vanderplanki(Diptera) can tolerate dehydrogenation in liquid helium at -270 C. Chironomid caterpillars, Polypedilum vanderplanki Hinton, breed in shallow pools in the rocky mountains of Northern Nigeria and Uganda, exposed to the sun. These insects survive when their puddles dry up. The insect Polypedilum vanderplanki is the only species that is adapted to survive when the body dries out, as a result of which it retains less than 3% of the fluid in the body. Some organs in insects can also tolerate severe dehydration.

The most bloodthirsty insect

This tiny insect is a water beetle. It is found in Central and Southern Europe, especially at the confluence of rivers with the Danube, in lakes, canals and swamps of the Balkans. Thanks to its aerodynamic body shape and oar-like legs, it is considered an excellent swimmer. The aquatic organisms it attacks - from plankton, all types of small aquatic animals and worms to large fish - become its inevitable victims.

But the beetle larva is even more bloodthirsty. She has no mouth, but she does have two unusual jaws protruding from her flattened head. In essence, these are the joints of the open claws with which the larva grabs its prey. But this is also the most amazing tool created by nature - forceps, which are equipped with double tubes of injection syringes. Syringes that simultaneously serve to inject a poisonous injection and suck out the contents of the victim.

The larva rushes at the victim and sprays a poisonous composition from its stomach through its claws. The poison kills the victim and the larva, through the same claws, internally absorbs the contents of its prey, otherwise it is digested under the influence of gastric poison. All that remains of the victim is the outer shell, which sinks to the bottom.

Longest diapause

The butterfly yucca moth (Lepidoptera: Prodoxidae) has the longest diapause. Adult Yucca baccata (Agavaceae) insects from Nevada emerged from larvae after 19 years, all this time they were monitored in the laboratory.

Super-acute hearing

Ormia's hearing is truly rare: the insect determines the direction of sound with an accuracy of two degrees. A person trying to determine who is speaking in a crowded room won't do any better. The reason is the design of the ormia's ears. The ear that is closer to the sound source responds faster than the other. But due to the fact that the distance between the eardrums is so small, because the size of the head is only half a millimeter, they begin to vibrate in antiphase. The nervous system instantly calculates the pressure difference between them and signals the muscles to react to the source of the sound. Everything takes about 50 nanoseconds, but in humans it’s a thousand times longer.

Adaptability

In general, insects adapt well to a new environment, much better than warm-blooded animals. Radiation and environmental pollution can lead to mutations in insects, but the likelihood of genetic changes is negligible.

Basement behavior mosquitoes no longer fits into the usual framework for science. Several key features in their lifestyle have changed. Firstly, the capital's mosquito has acquired the ability to live in dirty water. Secondly, to mate, he no longer has to swarm (in nature, mosquitoes form a swarm, where males and females mate, but in basements there is not enough space for this). Finally, female mosquitoes have learned to lay eggs without feeding on blood. The mosquito, having passed the larval-pupa stage, can already give birth to offspring.

Wing vibrations

Insects have different wings, and they vibrate at different frequencies. So, for example, a fly makes 330-350 strokes per second; bee - 300 when it flies with honey, and 440 when it flies without cargo; bumblebees flap their wings 190-240 times per second, and mosquitoes - 500-600 (some species even 1000 times); wasps – 250; horseflies – 100; dragonflies – 40-100; ladybug – 75; cockchafer – 45; moths – 35-40; locusts – 20.

Shortest mating behavior

Honey bee Apis mellifera mates on the fly, the female rises into the air, the males rush after her, together they resemble a comet and its tail. The right to mate belongs to the winner who catches up with her, but he pays with his life: mating occurs so quickly that after mating the male does not have time to remove his phallus, and it remains in the body of the uterus, the male dies.

New insect order Mantophosmatodea discovered

A new order of insects has been found in the mountains of Namibia. This is the first discovery of its kind in 80 years. Mantophosmatodea is the 31st known insect order. Two of its representatives, which fell into the hands of researchers, are about 2 cm long and resemble a hybrid of a cricket and a stick insect. Judging by the structure of the mouthparts and the remains of food in the stomach, they are predators that eat other insects. Mantophosmatodea were first described by Oliver Zompro, a graduate student at the Max Planck Institute for Limnology, who discovered the fossilized remains of these insects in pieces of Baltic amber. The age of the find is about 45 million years. Then the existence of living representatives of this order in the Brandberg mountain range in western Namibia was announced by employees of the National Museum of this country from Windhoek. An international expedition confirmed the information.

Insect cloned

Canadians were the first to clone an insect. It was a fruit fly (Drosophila). Previous attempts to clone insects have ended in failure. Nuclei extracted from embryonic cells were used. Embryonic cells, unlike adult ones, are much easier to “reprogram”, which significantly increases the chances of success. However, out of 800 attempts to clone Drosophila undertaken by researchers, the desired result was achieved in only five.

On average, a person eats 70 insects in a lifetime.

Lifespan of insects

One-day-old (adult) has average duration life 1-3 days, maximum record 20 days. Among domestic bees, the queen lives for 3 years, with a maximum of 5 years. But a worker bee lives 40 days in summer and 9 months in winter. The ant lives 5-7 days. Its maximum lifespan is 18 days.

What insects do people eat?

Grasshoppers and locusts
Insects are food rich in protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. They are considered a delicacy in Thailand, where fried crickets and locusts are popular.

Witchetti larvae
Best eaten alive. Ten large larvae provide the adult with all the proteins, carbohydrates and fats. The Aborigines prepare wood larvae "witchetti" by rolling them in hot ashes. This way they taste like an omelette.

3. Insect habitat

Complex relationships between insects and the environment are possible only if the behavior of these organisms is perfect. And it is determined by hereditary instincts and does not require any training. Indeed, any insect larva that has just hatched from an egg, and any adult insect - a butterfly, a fly, a wasp - that has left the pupa behaves like a master who is fully aware of his duties, it skillfully searches for food, and can deftly escape from enemies - predatory insects or birds. Many insects immediately begin to dig complex burrows or build structures for their offspring.

In some insects, a small creature emerges from the egg, similar in almost every way to an adult insect, only it does not have wings, it feeds on the same food, and usually lives in the same environment. These are, for example, cockroaches, grasshoppers, crickets, locusts, bedbugs and aphids. In other insects, young individuals - larvae - have a completely different appearance compared to adult individuals. Both eat and live differently. These are insects with complete transformation - beetles, butterflies, mosquitoes, flies, various wasps, bees, ants, fleas and some others. .

Insects are among the ancient inhabitants of our planet. Over hundreds of millions of years, they reached enormous diversity, high numbers, populated a vast land area, adapted to different conditions existence. They are found on the surface of the earth and in the soil, in the aquatic environment and in the air, inhabit vegetation, and penetrate into living spaces.

Insects live everywhere: in forests and steppes, in rivers and lakes, in hot deserts and at the peaks highest mountains, in the Arctic and Antarctic. Many insects also live near humans - in their houses, gardens, vegetable gardens and fields, or in warehouses for grain and other products.

Insects are very diverse and numerous in warm areas - in the south of our country, and especially in the tropics of Asia, South America, Africa, and the north of Australia. Many of them are large in size and have very bright, beautiful colors.

Only in the seas and oceans are insects almost absent. Only a few species of water strider bugs glide swiftly among the sea waves on their non-wetting legs. They breed here and feed on fish eggs and small crustaceans swimming near the surface of the water.

Most insects are very thermophilic; they fly animatedly, jump, and run in sunny weather. True, there are also insects (mosquitoes, some butterflies) that fly in late cold autumn, and wingless springtails and boreus even move through the snow during winter thaws. And yet, warmth and sunlight are almost as necessary for the life of most insects as sunlight is for green plants.

4. Insects listed in the Red Book of the Perm Territory

The Red Book is an official reference publication that contains information about appearance, distribution, bioptic occurrence and status of rare and endangered plants, animals and other organisms. .

The total number of arthropod species living in the Middle Urals is quite large: insects alone number at least 10 thousand. Most are rare or very rare species. Their description would fill more than one volume.

The uniqueness of the insect fauna in our region is that here you can simultaneously meet representatives of various natural areas and high altitude zones. Here lies the boundary of the distribution of steppe species that live on local islands of steppe vegetation (for example, Spasskaya Mountain in the Perm Territory). On mountain peaks with fragments of tundra vegetation (for example, the Konzhakovsky Kamen, Basegi mountain ranges). Tundra insect species live, preserved from ice age. Within the remaining islands of indigenous mountain swampy forests, representatives of the middle taiga ethnofauna are found. Such relict species, rare for the Middle Urals, deserve protection.

Many insects are known only from isolated finds, so in most cases it is impossible to accurately determine which species are in alarming decline. The well-being of arthropod species is mainly determined by the condition of their habitats. Direct extermination (catching by collectors or for commercial purposes) has not reached such a scale in our region as to have a negative impact on the population [9. 153].

Often rare species of insects and spiders are extremely similar in appearance to common, widespread species, live together with them and can only be identified with accuracy only by specialists. Therefore, the strategy for the protection of rare arthropods should consist in the protection not of individual specific species (which is often difficult or impossible to achieve), but of entomocenoses in their habitats.

Representatives of several fairly well-known groups of insects are included in the Red Book of the Middle Urals. Their habitats should receive (or already have) the status of protected areas. In this way, all inhabitants of the entomocenosis will be protected, including these species and those that have not yet been identified as endangered. .

5 species of insects are listed in the Red Book of the Perm Territory.

Black Apollo (Mnemosyne) – parnassius Mnemosyne (Linnaeus, 1758)

Order Lepidoptera. Family of sailboats.

A large whitish-gray butterfly (wingspan 50-60 mm) with two black spots on each of the front wings, the inner edges of the hind wings are black. The body is slightly pubescent. The species is distributed locally. In the Perm region it is known from the outskirts of Perm.

Typical habitats are edges and clearings of mixed and deciduous forests, mountain meadows, river and stream valleys. Butterflies fly from May to mid-July. The eggs are white or beige, the caterpillars are velvety black, nocturnal, live on corydalis different types.

The species is scarce everywhere. Limiting factors: plowing and economic development of meadows in mountain forests; disruption of the water regime as a result of deforestation of indigenous mountain forests.

To preserve the species within the boundaries of the Perm Territory, it is necessary: ​​research of biotopes potentially suitable for the habitat of these butterflies; ensuring the protection of all discovered habitats.

Apollo – parnassius Apollo (Linnaeus, 1758)

Order Lepidoptera. Family of sailboats.

The largest butterfly in the region (wingspan 70-90 mm0. powdery white color, with a pattern of black and red spots on the wings. The hind wing on top has two red spots. In the female, all the dark elements of the pattern and translucent areas are expanded, the overall color is more dark. Distributed mainly in the south of the forest zone. In the Perm region, the species was recorded in the Sylva river valley.

Typical biotopes are mixed-grass dry meadows in river valleys. Leads a sedentary lifestyle. Butterflies appear at the end of June and fly until mid-July. In May and June, caterpillars live on sedums of various types, feeding on their leaves. Adult caterpillars are velvety black, with orange spots on the sides. They pupate for the winter. The pupae are reddish-brown or black-brown. Apollo scares away enemies with red spots on its hind wings, and can secrete foul-smelling substances. It is considered very tenacious, quickly healing injuries.

The species is scarce everywhere. Limiting factor – economic development of floodplain meadows

To preserve the species in the Perm region, it is necessary to study biotopes potentially suitable for the habitat of these butterflies; ensuring the protection of all discovered habitats.

Common swallowtail – Papilio machaon (Linnaeus, 1758)

Order Lepidoptera. Family of sailboats.

Status. In the Perm region, the state of the species corresponds to rarity category 2 of the Red Book.

The swallowtail has yellow wings with a black pattern consisting of an outer border and large spots, and an orange spot at the inner lower corner; the tail of the hind wing is black, no longer than 1 cm, wingspan up to 8.5 cm.

Distributed in the Palearctic and Alaska, throughout the CIS, with the exception of the tundra. For the territory of the Perm region, isolated encounters are known.

Typical habitats in the taiga zone are edges, clearings, clearings, meadows, floodplains, steppes, especially mixed-grass ones. Complete taiga is avoided. It also lives in the mountains. In most of its range it produces two generations per year, in the north – one. The flight of butterflies in different latitudes is from May to August. Egg laying and feeding of caterpillars occurs on herbaceous plants: Umbellaceae, Asteraceae, Lamiaceae, etc. Overwinters in the pupal stage.

Few in number everywhere.

Within the borders of the Perm region, it is necessary to study and preserve biotopes potentially suitable for the habitat of these butterflies.

Unidentified bumblebee (colored, unusual) – Bombus confuses (Dalla Torre, 1882).

In the Perm region, the state of the species corresponds to rarity category 2 of the Red Book.

Has a dark color. On the back between the wings there is a wide band of dark hairs, the front and back parts of the back are covered with light yellowish hairs, the end of the abdomen is white or yellowish.

In the Perm region it is recorded only in the southern regions.

Confined to meadow biotopes in the zone of deciduous forests. It builds nests above the ground. The emergence of overwintered females occurs in early June. The females of the new generation, after mating and the death of the males, leave for the winter in August. It feeds and, accordingly, is a pollinator of plants from the legume, noricaceae, and asteraceae families.

Within the boundaries of the Perm region, research and conservation of biotopes that are potentially suitable for this species are necessary.

Fruit bumblebee – bombus pomorum Panzer, 1805

Order Hymenoptera. Bee family.

Status. In the Perm region, the state of the species corresponds to rarity category 2.

It is dark in color, but the base and apex of the abdomen are covered with yellow or orange hairs.

The species is widespread in the forest-steppe zone. In the Perm region it is recorded on the southern slope of Spasskaya Mountain, Kungur region.

It is an inhabitant of steppes and steppe meadows; it prefers to collect nectar and pollen on the flowers of plants of the borage family. The nest is made in the ground, often in burrows of mouse-like rodents. At the end of May, overwintered females leave their wintering grounds in search of places to build a new nest. These are social insects. Families live from spring until autumn, when the entire population of the nest, except for the young females of the new generation, dies.

The species is scarce everywhere. The limiting factor is the reduction of suitable habitats.

Within the boundaries of the Perm region, it is necessary to study and preserve biotopes potentially suitable for this species.

In the Red Book of the Perm Territory for animal objects and flora three categories of rarity have been adopted, almost completely corresponding to those used in the Red Book Russian Federation.

Category 1 – critically endangered (endangered): objects of flora and fauna, the number and range of which have decreased to a critical level, and whose habitats are at high risk of loss;

Category 2 – those in a dangerous state (declining in numbers): objects of flora and fauna with a steadily declining number, which, with further influence of factors reducing the number, may fall into the category of being in a critical condition (endangered);

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The period eats insects and other invertebrates in significant quantities. Possessing excellent meat, the gray partridge is one of the most valuable game birds. Shooting of this species in the Stavropol Territory is prohibited. CHAPTER 3. ORDER NIGHT PREDATORS Systematically, owls stand far from daytime birds of prey, with which they have a number of common features external signs, ...

The insect habitat is quite large. Insects have adapted to survive in almost any environment on Earth, including areas with extreme climates.

Entomologists have discovered some species of insects on volcanic lava and others in cold polar regions.

Most insects live in the tropics, where warm temperatures create the most favorable conditions for their growth and development.

Some types of insects can live deep underwater, while others need to come to the surface for air.

Temperate forests provide shelter to numerous insects, providing a variety of food and shelter, i.e. favorable living environment. The number of insect species here depends on the time of year and the types of trees that dominate the forest.

Many insects lay eggs in water and their larvae develop in such an environment (underwater). These insects fly out into the air when they become adults.

House fly larvae develop in animal manure and household garbage (not the most pleasant habitat).

Some insects are able to survive on the surface of crude oil lakes. They feed on other insects that have fallen into the oil.

Some insects survive on man-made materials - glue, paint, clothing, paper. They make our houses their homes.

About 97% of the world's insects live on land or in fresh water. Only very few insects can survive in a salty environment (seawater).

Insects have colonized almost all areas of the earth. They can be found on plants and on the ground, in water and in the air, in eternal ice and in the hot desert, in the mountains covered with snow, and in dark caves.

The earth, especially in forests and fields, hides millions of insects.

Each handful of forest soil is home to up to a thousand forktails. One square meter the land in the field can support more than 70,000 of these small wingless creatures. Many insects feed on mushrooms, rotted leaves and other plant and animal debris, contributing to the cycle of substances in nature.

Plants provide food for other insects, such as root aphids and chafer larvae. Predatory larvae of ground beetles, short-winged beetles and click beetles prey on insects, earthworms and snails.

Several species of beetles live in the darkness of caves. The eyes of most of them have atrophied during the process of evolution, but their sense of touch is developed to an incredible degree.

For cave beetles, dark body color is not as important as for their relatives of other species; they do not require protection from harmful ultraviolet rays. Sometimes there are light yellow or reddish species. The cave grasshopper, a wingless predatory inhabitant of karst caves, is colorless and blind.

Are insects found in ice?

In the summer, in the mountains, snow and glacier fleas multiply at such a speed that the snow takes on a “bloody” hue due to the variegated color of the insects.

They feed on pollen and organic particles brought by the wind.

Can insects survive in the desert?

Beetles that live in South Africa's Namib Desert cope well with lack of moisture. Darkling beetles of the genus Lepidochim dig grooves in the sand perpendicular to the direction of the wind. When the wind brings wet air from the Atlantic, moisture settles on the edge of the groove. Other types of beetles do a headstand during humid winds.

Droplets of moisture roll down the body of the beetle, and it licks them off.

Extreme conditions

Some species of insects adapt to incredibly harsh environmental conditions: in Java, the larvae of Dasyhelea tersa, a species of mosquito in the midge family, develop at a temperature of 51 ° C.

Darkling beetles Upis ceramboides, which live in North America and Siberia, can withstand temperatures of -50 °C.

Depth record

Siberian Lake Baikal with a depth of 1620 m is the most deep lake on the ground.

Several species of insects live at the very bottom. The larvae of the midge Sergerttia koschowi set a kind of record: they live on the bottom of the lake at a depth of 1360 m.

Water striders

The largest bodies of water in the world - the seas - are practically not inhabited by insects.

The exception is the water strider Halobates. Like ordinary water striders that live in our area, they hunt animals that have fallen into the water. Sometimes Halobates can be found in a closed ocean bay.

How do insects breathe underwater?

Clean streams and rivers from source to mouth are habitats for many insects. Dragonflies, mayflies, caddisflies, stoneflies and other dipterans in the early stages of development live on the bottom of streams.

Bodies of standing water, such as ditches, puddles and ponds, also provide habitat for many larval and adult insects. The larvae of mayflies, dragonflies, caddisflies and stoneflies do not have breathing holes through which oxygen-rich air could enter their bodies. These insects absorb oxygen dissolved in water through filamentous, leaf-shaped or bundle-shaped appendages - tracheas.

Adult insects living underwater store air on their bodies. The swimmer is bordered - under the wings, where its breathing holes fit. Other water beetles and bedbugs have a silvery container on their abdomen. Fine hairs in the area respiratory tract direct the water, preventing it from moving backwards. Some insects, such as the water scorpion and mosquito, breathe through an air-filled tube on the surface of a body of water.

If you catch a hedgehog in the forest, you will be surprised how many fleas it has.

Section: Insects

About 3,000 species of insects constantly visit anthills. We humans also often, albeit against our will, share our home with some representatives of insects.

The most numerous and diverse class of living beings on the planet are insects.

Class insects. Habitats, structure, lifestyle.

Only they have managed to adapt to all habitats: from hot deserts to snow-capped mountain peaks, and some insects even live under water. So what are insects? Although at first glance they all seem different, insects have three common characteristics. Firstly, their body consists of three parts: head, chest and abdomen. Secondly, they are all invertebrates; they lack a spinal column. Finally, all insects have six legs and most of them have wings.

Insects do not have a skeleton, but have an outer shell that protects internal organs, like a body, protecting parts of the Volkswagen Beetle.

Real beetles cannot grow to that size because their shells would be very heavy. The size of insects also limits their respiratory systems. Instead of lungs, they have a network of branching tracheas, which provide the body with oxygen. At the same time, air penetrates through tiny holes - spiracles. Due to the absence of lungs, air does not penetrate deep into the body, so the size of insects cannot exceed 15 cm, with rare exceptions.

The world's smallest insects can fly through the eye of a needle.

Surprisingly, the heaviest insect on the planet, the clumsy goliath beetle, can also fly, despite the fact that, according to all modern concepts and laws of aerodynamics, it should not fly.

When did the first insects appear? More than 300,000,000 years ago, the first winged individuals flew in the forests that cover the earth, long before the appearance of humans.

Moreover, ancient insects were very similar to modern views, which suggests that even then they knew how to adapt to any conditions.

As soon as the first homo sapiens appeared, many species of insects adapted to live next to humans.

Bed bugs, lice and fleas annoyed our ancestors in their warm caves, and then in living quarters, cockroaches and flies feasted on leftover food. This marked the beginning of man's dislike of insects, and since then we have perceived them as pests.

In fact, insects are an important part of our life. And the benefits of insects are much greater than the harm. They convert plant and animal residues into nutrients that fertilize the soil and promote plant growth.

Insects are indispensable as pollinators. These highly adapted creatures are essential to life. Without them, our world could not exist. Perhaps if we try to understand insects, we can treat them with the respect they deserve.

Insects are a class belonging to the phylum Arthropods. The vast majority of arthropod species belong to insects.

There are about 1.5 million species of insects. Compared to crustaceans and arachnids, they are more complex due to the fact that they are better adapted to living on land and have mastered almost all living environments here.

They crawl on the ground, live in the soil, fly and jump. Some have even returned to life in water, but still breathe air.

Insects include beetles, butterflies, grasshoppers, mosquitoes, dragonflies, flies, bees, ants, cockroaches and many others.

Can you give the following general characteristics insects:

• The body is covered with a cuticle containing chitin(as with all arthropods).
• The body of insects consists of a head, thorax and abdomen.

  The chest consists of three segments. The number of abdominal segments varies depending on the species (from 6 to 10 segments).

• Three pairs of legs(6 in total), which grow from the chest segments. Each leg consists of several segments (coxa, trochanter, femur, tibia, tarsus). In some insects, the legs may be modified due to the fact that they perform some other function rather than walking (for jumping, digging, swimming, grasping).

  For example, grasshoppers' hind legs are more powerful and long and provide them with a good jump. And in mantises, the front legs are modified into grasping limbs, with which it catches other insects.

• Most insects have two pairs of wings. They grow from the last two segments of the chest.

  In a number of groups, the first pair of wings is modified into hard elytra (for example, in beetles).

• On the head there is one pair of antennae, on which the organs of smell and touch are located.
• Insect eyes are complex (faceted), consist of many simple eyes (facets). Such eyes form a mosaic image (the overall picture is made up of small parts).
• Insects have a more complex nervous system and behavior than other groups of arthropods, but their general body plan is roughly the same. The brain (suprapharyngeal ganglion mass), peripharyngeal ring, and ventral nerve cord are distinguished.
• Insects can eat in different ways. In the process of evolution, they formed different oral apparatus(gnawing, sucking, filtering and other types). In any case, the upper and lower lips, a pair of upper and a pair of lower jaws, as well as a chitinous tongue.
• The digestive system consists of the oral cavity, esophagus, crop (not always), stomach, midgut, hindgut, anus.

  Various glands that secrete digestive enzymes empty into the oral cavity and midgut.

  Cricket insect. Cricket lifestyle and habitat

  In the stomach of an insect, food is mainly crushed using hard chitinous formations. Digestion occurs in the midgut, which, at the border with the stomach, has blind processes in a circle that increase its surface.

• The excretory system is represented only Malpighian vessels. These are tubes, one end of which flows into the hindgut, and the other is in the body cavity and is blindly closed. Through the walls of the Malpighian vessel, waste products that need to be removed from the body are filtered from the body cavity in which blood flows.

  They exit the hindgut along with undigested food debris. Most harmful substances The body isolates insects in the so-called fat body (but its main function is the supply of nutrients).

• The respiratory system consists only of trachea- branched tubes penetrating the body. They open outward on each segment with a pair of holes.
• The circulatory system is not closed, T.

  That is, blood flows from the vessels into the body cavity, and then collects again in the vessels. The blood is pushed by the heart, located on the dorsal side of the abdomen. From the heart, blood flows towards the head. From the head, blood flows in the abdominal direction through the spaces between the organs. Then it is collected again into vessels going to the heart.

  Blood is involved only in the transfer of nutrients from the intestines and the removal of harmful waste products from cells. Oxygen enters the tissues of the insect's body directly from the trachea. They also release from tissues carbon dioxide. Despite the fact that the tracheal breathing system for arthropods is considered more advanced, and the trachea permeates the entire body of the insect, this type of breathing prevents the insects from increasing in size.

  A large body cannot be fully supplied with oxygen using tracheas.

• There are two types of insect development: with complete transformation and with incomplete transformation. In insects with complete transformation in the life cycle, metamorphosis is observed, when the larva, unlike adult individuals, changes greatly through pupation and becomes an adult, sexually mature insect. This development allows larvae and adults to feed and live in different places, which reduces competition between them.

  Insects with incomplete metamorphosis do not undergo metamorphosis in their life cycle. They emerge from eggs looking similar to adults. As the young grow, they molt several times and develop reproductive organs.

• For historical development life on Earth (evolution), many insects entered into a kind of symbiosis with flowering plants, becoming their pollinators and feeding on their pollen and nectar.

  This is what determined them external structure(especially the structure of the oral apparatus) and all the diversity and beauty of plant flowers. Many insect species only pollinate certain types plants whose flowers are adapted for pollination only by a given type of insect.

Insects are the largest class of animals. It includes more than 1 million species. Insects live everywhere: in forests, gardens, meadows, fields, vegetable gardens, on livestock farms, in human homes. They can be found in ponds and lakes, on the body of animals.

The body of insects consists of a head, thorax and abdomen. There are a pair of compound eyes on the head, a pair of antennae, three pairs of legs on the chest, and most have one or two pairs of wings, and spiracles on the sides of the abdomen.

Insects differ in the shape of their body parts, the size of their eyes, the length and shape of their antennae and other characteristics. Their antennae, mouthparts, and legs are especially diverse. Some insects have lamellar antennae (many beetles), others have filamentous antennae (grasshoppers), others have feathery or club-shaped antennae (butterflies), etc. The mouthparts can be gnawing, like those of cockchafers, piercing-sucking, like mosquitoes, sucking, like butterflies, etc. The hind legs of grasshoppers are jumping, while those of swimming beetles are swimming; The front legs of the mole cricket are digging. All these and other structural features have developed in insects in connection with adaptation to certain living conditions.

Peculiarities internal structure insects

associated mainly with the respiratory, excretory and nervous systems. The respiratory organs of insects - the trachea - are highly branched. In small insects, gas exchange occurs by diffusion. Large insects ventilate the trachea (when the abdominal walls relax, air is sucked into the trachea, and when contracted, it exits into external environment). The excretory organs of insects are numerous tubes, the free ends of which are closed. The excretory products entering them flow into the posterior intestine. Insects have fat cells that store nutrients and water. Some substances unnecessary for the body are deposited in them.

Differences nervous system insects are associated with enlargement of the suprapharyngeal nerve ganglion (it is often called the brain), a decrease in the number and enlargement of the nodes of the ventral nerve chain. The more complex structure of the nervous system is manifested in the complexity of insect behavior. A bee, for example, having found flowering nectar-bearing plants, upon returning to the hive, crawls on the honeycomb, “dances,” describing certain figures, by which other bees establish the direction to the place of honey collection. The ants close the entrances to the anthill at night, bring wet needles to the surface, and after drying, drag them into the depths of the anthill.

Types of insect development.

Insects are dioecious animals. In some insects (locusts, bedbugs), fertilized eggs laid by females develop into larvae that are similar in appearance to adults. Feeding heavily, they grow, molt several times and become adult insects. In other insects (butterflies, beetles, flies), the larvae are not similar in appearance and nutrition to adults. The larvae of the cabbage butterfly, for example, are worm-like and do not feed on nectar, like butterflies, but on cabbage leaves. Their mouthparts are not sucking, but gnawing. After several molts, the caterpillars turn into pupae that do not feed or move, but complex changes occur under their chitinous cover. After some time, the pupa’s body cover bursts and an adult insect emerges.

Development that occurs in three phases, and the insect larvae are similar to adults, is called incomplete transformation. The development of insects, which occurs in four phases (including the pupal phase), and the larvae do not resemble adults, is called complete metamorphosis.

Development with transformation makes it possible for insects to survive under unfavorable living conditions ( low temperature, lack of food) at one or another less vulnerable stage of development. The greatest advantages Insects with complete metamorphosis have it. Their larvae do not compete with adults: they usually use different food and develop in different habitats.

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