How many insects live on Earth? Class insects Brief overview of the class.

What types do you know?

Before you start, you can talk to your child about house insects. The guys know much more about them than about wild ones. Domestic insects surround us everywhere: in the apartment, in the house, in the apiary. Bees are also domestic animals, as they are domesticated by people and used for purposes beneficial to humanity. Ask what insects can live in your baby’s apartment. These do not necessarily have to be cockroaches (the most expected answer): they are now being actively removed, and they practically do not settle in new well-kept houses. Spiders can also live in the apartment, which often descend on their webs. You can see what insects living in an apartment look like in the photo on our website.

Tasks for children

To introduce your child to the types of insects, I suggest printing out cards and a poster with photos on the topic of insects for children. Among them there are both familiar and rare, endangered species.

Poster

Your child will get acquainted with insects such as butterfly, fly, grasshopper, mantis, dragonfly, spider (not an insect), locust, caterpillar (an insect larva, you cannot call it a full-fledged insect), beetle, bee, ant, ladybug, bumblebee, worm, woodlice, centipede, wasp, rhinoceros beetle, big black beetle and others.

You can print out a poster with photos of insects, hang it in a visible place for your child, and go over to it from time to time and introduce your child to different types of insects.

The baby will get acquainted with various types of insects, expand his horizons, memory, attentiveness, and develop fine motor skills of his fingers.

Games with cards and photos of insect species will help your child remember the main insects and will bring many positive moments. With their help you can train your visual memory. Learn the names of insects with your child, and then select several cards and arrange them in random order. Ask your child to try to remember in what order the images are located. Then turn the cards over and ask the baby to name which card has which insect. This exercise perfectly develops visual memory. In addition, the baby will quickly learn the names of fauna representatives.

Educational materials

Endangered insect species for children
Insects with names English language.
Pictures with insects (black and white version).
Insects and spiders for children. Types of insects in the house.
Types of stinging insects.

How to play with them?

1. Print the file and cut it into cards.
2. Show the child the card and say the name of this or that insect. You can tell your child a few words about the insect.
3. When the child learns the names of all insects, ask him to choose from 2 options. For example, show 2 cards - a butterfly and a fly and ask where the butterfly is; if the child does not know how to talk, let him point with his finger.
4. Next more difficult option— add more cards and offer to find, for example, a ladybug.
5. Memory game - print out 2 copies of cards with insects. Turn them over and look for pairs for each insect in turn. Start with a small number of pairs of insect species, then add more.

These games are suitable for children aged 1 year and older.

Why does a child need this?

Man is a part of nature. But nature also belongs to insects. Today, a person spends most of his time in an apartment, strives to restore order there, and perceives insects as unwanted visitors to his home. Hence the hostility that arises in us, which we experience when looking at these small inhabitants of the planet. Even if we are asked to look at a photo of an insect, unpleasant shivers will probably run down our spine.

Of course, not all insects may be acceptable to us, but children should understand that there are also rare species listed in the Red Book. They cannot be destroyed. Show the children photos of these insects so that preschoolers can imagine what they look like. Perhaps children will never meet these representatives of the fauna in their lives, but they will remain aware that nature must be protected.

The tasks with photos presented on our website are very colorful and bright. They will interest the child, which gives you a convenient opportunity to develop the children’s creative abilities, memory and thinking.

Video presentations

conclusions

So, insects can be rare, wild, living in an apartment or house. Thanks to cards, a poster and photos, children will be able to get to know them. The guys must understand that they do not need to be afraid. If you encounter an insect in your apartment, you do not need to try to kill them. Let him go, let him fly on his way. The tasks that are on our website will help develop memory and creativity. Thanks to them, children will understand that insects are inhabitants of the planet just like ourselves.

How many insects are there on our earth?

Insects are the largest group of organisms on Earth. In fact, there are about 8 million species of insects (what is known to science today). It is estimated that there may be up to 30 million species of insects on the planet. Thousands of new species are discovered every year.

Approximately 80% of insect species are herbivores, 15% are predators, 5% are bloodsuckers and carrion eaters.

In total, there are supposedly 9.8 billion (10^18) billion insects on Earth. Insects are so numerous on Earth that for every person living on Earth, there are approximately 1.4 billion insects (!) This is 6 times more than mushrooms (1.5 million) and 36 times more than plants ( 250,000).

Behind these numbers lies a subtle reality: some insect species are endangered. This could have catastrophic consequences, especially for agriculture.

Probably for some ears it will sound like a joke “Castrotrophic consequences for agriculture”, because farmers spend great amount efforts and insecticides, dreaming of the day when not a single insect will remain on earth.

No one realizes how important insects are in the food chain and in the balance of our ecosystems.

Here, for example, is the great Kalosoma (beetle), Calosoma sycophanta- a great lover of pine: this beetle destroys up to 200-300 caterpillars in the summer, and also eats silkworm larvae and cocoons. It climbs well on trunks and thin branches, hunting for caterpillars. Unlike most ground beetles, it flies well. “Voici, voilà.”

In addition, insects are natural pollinators of plants. The day there are no more insects, farmers will realize the importance of insects. I'm willing to bet that large phytosanitary companies have already planned to sell unmanned aerial vehicles and automated systems instead of insects.

Do you know how many species of insects live on our planet? From 2 to 4 million different species! Scientists have described about 625,000 species of insects, and there is little hope that all existing insect species will ever be described. No class of animals can even approach the number of species of insects.

If you try to estimate the absolute number of insects living on earth, the figure will be so huge that the human mind cannot even imagine it! The only way scientists can estimate the approximate number of insects living in the ground is to count their number in 1 square meter. m of wet soil. This number ranges from 500 to 2000.

Thus, one acre of good soil should support about 4 million insects. Most of these insects are indistinguishable to the human eye. Many of them are simply microscopic in size. And only a few thousand species of insects in sufficiently bother a person so that he tries to control them. If you think about it, you realize that a person is literally surrounded by insects, but has no idea how many of them there are around!

The vast majority of insects have two things in common: their body is divided into three parts and they usually have six legs, although there are exceptions to this rule.

What are aphids?

Aphids (or, in other words, plant lice) are green and brownish insects no more than 6 mm in length. Aphids reproduce so quickly that if they were not destroyed by natural enemies, they would have eaten almost all the plants on Earth! Aphids can be found on the leaves, stems, and roots of all kinds of plants. These insects often cause significant damage to fruit trees, flowers, vegetables and grain crops. They have an unusually strong mouth or proboscis that protrudes from a tiny head. With this proboscis, the aphid pierces the surface of the leaf and sucks out its juices, after which the plant withers and, most likely, dies.

The most curious thing about the life of aphids is that the aphid's body secretes a sweet liquid called "honeydew", and ants love to drink this liquid. The ants capture the aphids and take care of them like a farmer takes care of his cows. By dragging aphids into their nest, the ants supply them with sufficient quantity greenery and carefully protected. When an ant wants to milk its “cow,” it strokes the aphid’s abdomen with its antennae, and tiny drops of honeydew are released on the edge of the abdomen. The ant drinks these drops. A person has no particular reason to protect aphids, so he often destroys them by spraying them with chemicals.

What does a butterfly eat?

As you know, the life of a butterfly goes through several cycles. First an egg, then a caterpillar, then a pupa (which sleeps all winter), and finally a butterfly emerges from the pupa. There is one period in the life of a butterfly when it eats especially a lot. This is the time when she remains a caterpillar. For some species of butterflies, the caterpillar stage is the only period of life when they eat anything at all. The caterpillar eats and grows in size until the skin bursts, which gives way to a new one, and so on many times in a row, and after a few weeks the caterpillar becomes many times larger than at first.

But in general, butterflies are quite adapted to eating: they have a head, chest, and abdomen. Those butterflies that eat have a proboscis instead of a mouth, which is coiled up between meals, like a clock spring. This proboscis can penetrate deep into the core of a flower in order to suck out its nectar.

In moths, this proboscis can reach a length of 15–20 cm, so that it is able to penetrate large tubular flowers. Some of them have incisor-like teeth at the end of their proboscis, which they can use to gnaw through the skins of fruits and drink their juice!

What do flies eat?

Due to its tiny size (1000 adult flies weigh 25–30 g), the average housefly does not need much food and will therefore find enough food for itself anywhere. Houseflies don't eat solid food because they don't have anything to chew it with. The fly's mouth is only suitable for sucking up liquid food. The role of the “tongue” is played by the proboscis, which resembles the trunk of an elephant. It is also divided into two at the end and these channels act as tubes through which liquid food is absorbed.

The common belief that houseflies bite before a thunderstorm is incorrect. In these cases, house flies are simply confused with other types of flies, such as desert flies or dung flies. These flies are blood-sucking flies, and they bite people. But, if houseflies don’t bite, why then are they considered so dangerous to humans? The fact is that the legs with pads and the body of flies are covered with protruding hairs, and their tongue is coated with sticky mucus. This means that dust and dirt are constantly sticking to the fly. And since houseflies look for food everywhere, including garbage and sewage, then in the dirt and dust that sticks to the fly there may be bacteria that cause various diseases, which transfer to our food when a fly lands on it, and get along with the food inside the human body.

How are flies born?

Everyone knows that flies are carriers of infection. The fly is born and spends most your life near waste and other places favorable for the development of bacteria. In fact, this moist, decaying matter is the most optimal place for flies to breed. Here the female lays white eggs (about 1.2 mm in size), from which thin, worm-like, legless larvae emerge. This is the "feeding" stage of the fly's life. Five or six days later, the larva's skin thickens and turns brownish and the life of the fly enters a resting stage: the larva becomes a pupa.

After another 5–6 days, an adult fly emerges from the pupa shell. The size of this fly does not change in the future: big flies They don't grow out of little ones. Another 10 days later, the fly mates, and a little later the female lays 100 to 150 eggs! Not all types of flies reproduce like houseflies.

Some incubate eggs within themselves and give birth to live larvae, and some species lay eggs that are already in the pupal stage. Due to the fact that flies spread diseases, people constantly fight against them. The best time to kill flies is in winter or in early spring. During this cold season, flies hide in dark, warm corners and are very hungry all the time, so they are easy to catch and kill.

Before leaving the house in rainy weather, you need to spray your shoes with a hydrophobic agent. At heavily polluted, we suggest washing shoes with special substances. As such a product, you can use a cleaner for greasy leather; this substance will help not only quickly clean your shoes or leather clothes, but also coat them with the necessary substances for further protection...

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Insects are the youngest of the invertebrates and the most numerous class of animals, numbering more than 1 million species. They have completely mastered all habitats - water, land, air. They are characterized by complex instincts, omnivorousness, high fertility, and for some, a social way of life.

During development with transformation, the habitat and food sources are divided between larvae and adults. The evolutionary path of many insects is closely related to flowering plants.

More highly developed insects are winged. Gravedigger beetles, dung beetles, and consumers of plant residues play an important role in the cycle of substances in nature, and at the same time, insects - pests of agricultural plants, gardens, food supplies, leather, wood, wool, and books - cause great damage.

Many insects are carriers of pathogens that cause diseases in animals and humans.

Due to the reduction of natural biogeocenoses and the use of pesticides total number insect species are declining, so 219 species are listed in the Red Book of the USSR.

General characteristics of the class

The body of adult insects is divided into three sections: head, thorax and abdomen.

• Head, consisting of six fused segments, is clearly separated from the chest and is movably connected to it. On the head there is a pair of segmented antennae or antennae, mouthparts and two compound eyes; many also have one to three simple ocelli.

  Two compound, or facet, eyes are located on the sides of the head, in some species they are very developed and can occupy most of the surface of the head (for example, in some dragonflies, horseflies). Each compound eye contains from several hundred to several thousand facets. Most insects are red-blind, but see and are attracted to ultraviolet light. This feature of insect vision is the basis for the use of light traps, emitting most of the energy in the violet and ultraviolet regions, to collect and study the ecological characteristics of nocturnal insects (some families of butterflies, beetles, etc.).

  The oral apparatus consists of three pairs of limbs: the upper jaws, the lower jaws, the lower lip (fused second pair of lower jaws) and the upper lip, which is not a limb, but is an outgrowth of chitin. The chitinous protrusion of the bottom also belongs to the oral apparatus. oral cavity- tongue or hypopharynx.

  

  

  

  Depending on the method of feeding, the oral organs of insects have a different structure. The following types of oral apparatus are distinguished:

  • gnawing-chewing - the elements of the oral apparatus have the form of short hard plates. Observed in insects that feed on solid plant and animal food (beetles, cockroaches, orthoptera)
  • piercing-sucking - the elements of the oral apparatus have the appearance of elongated hair-like bristles. Observed in insects that feed on plant cell sap or animal blood (bugs, aphids, cicadas, mosquitoes, mosquitoes)
  • licking-sucking - the elements of the oral apparatus have the form of tubular formations (in the form of a proboscis). It is observed in butterflies that feed on flower nectar and fruit juice. In many flies, the proboscis is highly transformed; at least five of its modifications are known, from a piercing-cutting organ in horse flies to a soft “licking” proboscis in flower flies that feed on nectar (or in carrion flies that feed on liquid parts of manure and carrion).

  Some species do not feed as adults.

  The structure of the antennae, or cubs, of insects is very diverse - filamentous, bristle-shaped, serrated, comb-shaped, club-shaped, lamellar, etc. There is one pair of antennae; they bear the organs of touch and smell, and are homologous to the antennules of crustaceans.

  The sense organs on the antennae of insects tell them not only their condition environment, they help to communicate with relatives, find a suitable habitat for themselves and their offspring, as well as food. The females of many insects attract males using scents. Male lesser night peacocks can smell a female from several kilometers away. Ants recognize females from their anthill by smell. Some types of ants mark the path from the nest to the food source thanks to odorous substances that are released from special glands. With the help of their antennae, ants and termites smell the scent left by their relatives. If both antennae pick up the scent to the same extent, then the insect is on the right track. Attractant substances released by female butterflies ready to mate are usually carried by the wind.

• Breast insects consists of three segments (prothorax, mesothorax and metathorax), to each of which a pair of legs is attached to the ventral side, hence the name of the class - hexapods. In addition, in higher insects the chest bears two, less often one, pair of wings.

  The number and structure of limbs are characteristic features class. All insects have 6 legs, one pair on each of the 3 thorax segments. The leg consists of 5 sections: coxa (plow), trochanter (trochanter), femur (femur), tibia (tibia) and articulated tarsus (tarsus). Depending on the lifestyle, the limbs of insects can vary greatly. Most insects have walking and running legs. In grasshoppers, locusts, fleas and some other species, the third pair of legs is of the jumping type; In mole crickets that make passages in the soil, the first pair of legs are digging legs. In aquatic insects, for example the swimming beetle, the hind legs are transformed into rowing or swimming legs.

  Digestive system presented

  • The foregut, starting from the oral cavity and dividing into the pharynx and esophagus, the posterior section of which expands, forming a goiter and a chewing stomach (not for everyone). In consumers of solid foods, the stomach has thick muscular walls and carries chitinous teeth or plates from the inside, with the help of which food is crushed and pushed into the midgut.

    The foregut also includes salivary glands (up to three pairs). The secretion of the salivary glands performs a digestive function, contains enzymes, and moistens food. In bloodsuckers, it contains a substance that prevents blood clotting. In bees, the secretion of one pair of glands is mixed in the crop with flower nectar and forms honey. In worker bees, the salivary glands, the duct of which opens into the pharynx (pharyngeal), secrete special protein substances (“milk”), which feed the larvae that turn into queens. In butterfly caterpillars, caddisfly larvae and hymenoptera, the salivary glands are transformed into silk-secreting or spinning glands, producing silky thread for the production of cocoons, protective formations and other purposes.

  • The midgut at the border with the foregut is covered from the inside with glandular epithelium (pyloric outgrowths of the intestine), which secretes digestive enzymes (insects lack liver and other glands). Absorption of nutrients occurs in the midgut.
  • The hindgut receives undigested food debris. Here water is sucked out of them (this is especially important for desert and semi-desert species). The hindgut ends with the anus, which leads excrement out.

  

  Excretory organs represented by Malpighian vessels (from 2 to 200), which look like thin tubes flowing into digestive system on the border between the midgut and hindgut, and the fat body, which functions as “storage kidneys”. The fat body is loose tissue located between internal organs insects It has a whitish, yellowish or greenish color. Cells of the fat body absorb metabolic products (uric acid salts, etc.). Next, the excretory products enter the intestines and are excreted together with excrement. In addition, fat body cells accumulate spare nutrients- fats, proteins and carbohydrate glycogen. These reserves are spent on the development of eggs during wintering.

  Respiratory system- trachea. This is a complex branching system of air tubes that directly deliver oxygen to all organs and tissues. On the sides of the abdomen and chest there are most often 10 pairs of spiracles (stigmas) - holes through which air enters the trachea. Large main trunks (tracheas) begin from the stigmas, which branch into smaller tubes. In the chest and anterior part of the abdomen, the trachea is expanded and forms air sacs. Tracheas penetrate the entire body of insects, entwine tissues and organs, and enter individual cells in the form of tiny branches - tracheoles, through which gas exchange occurs. Carbon dioxide and water vapor are removed to the outside through the tracheal system. Thus, the tracheal system replaces the functions of the circulatory system in supplying tissues with oxygen. The role of the circulatory system is reduced to the delivery of digested food to the tissues and the transfer of decay products from the tissues to the excretory organs.

  Circulatory system in accordance with the characteristics of the respiratory organs, it is relatively poorly developed, not closed, consists of the heart and a short, unbranched aorta extending from the heart to the head. Circulating in circulatory system the colorless liquid containing white blood cells is called hemolymph in contrast to blood. It fills the body cavity and the spaces between organs. The heart is tube-shaped, located on the dorsal side of the abdomen. The heart has several chambers capable of pulsating, into each of which a pair of holes equipped with valves opens. Through these openings, blood (hemolymph) enters the heart. The pulsation of the heart chambers is caused by the contraction of special pterygoid muscles. Blood moves in the heart from the rear end to the front, then enters the aorta and from it into the head cavity, then washes the tissues and flows through the cracks between them into the body cavity, into the spaces between the organs, from where through special openings (ostia) it enters the heart. The blood of insects is colorless or greenish-yellow (rarely red).

  Nervous system reaches an exceptionally high level of development. It consists of the suprapharyngeal ganglion, peripharyngeal connectives, the subpharyngeal ganglion (it was formed as a result of the fusion of three ganglia) and the abdominal nerve cord, which in primitive insects consists of three thoracic ganglia and eight abdominal ones. In higher groups of insects, adjacent nodes of the ventral nerve chain merge by combining three thoracic nodes into one large node or abdominal nodes into two or three or one large node (for example, in true flies or lamellar beetles).

  The suprapharyngeal ganglion, often called the brain, is especially complex. It consists of three sections - anterior, middle, posterior and has a very complex histological structure. The brain innervates the eyes and antennae. In its anterior section the most important role played by such a structure as the mushroom bodies - the highest associative and coordinating center of the nervous system. The behavior of insects can be very complex and has a clearly defined reflex nature, which is also associated with significant development of the brain. The subpharyngeal node innervates the oral organs and the anterior intestine. The thoracic ganglia innervate the organs of movement - legs and wings.

  Insects are characterized by very complex forms of behavior, which are based on instincts. Particularly complex instincts are characteristic of the so-called social insects - bees, ants, termites.

  Sense organs reach an exceptionally high level of development, which corresponds to high level general organization of insects. Representatives of this class have organs of touch, smell, vision, taste and hearing.

  All sense organs are based on the same element - the sensilla, consisting of one cell or a group of sensitive receptor cells with two processes. The central process goes to the central nervous system, and the peripheral one goes to the outer part, represented by various cuticular formations. The structure of the cuticular sheath depends on the type of sensory organs.

  The organs of touch are represented by sensitive hairs scattered throughout the body. The olfactory organs are located on the antennae and mandibular palps.

  The organs of vision play a leading role in orientation in external environment along with the olfactory organs. Insects have simple and compound (compound) eyes. Compound eyes consist of a huge number of individual prisms, or ommatidia, separated by a light-proof layer. This eye structure gives “mosaic” vision. Higher insects have color vision (bees, butterflies, ants), but it differs from human vision. Insects perceive mainly the short-wave part of the spectrum: green-yellow, blue and ultraviolet rays.

  Reproductive organs are located in the abdomen. Insects are dioecious organisms; they have well-defined sexual dimorphism. Females have a developed pair of tubular ovaries, oviducts, accessory gonads, spermatic receptacle and often an ovipositor. Males have a pair of testes, vas deferens, ejaculatory duct, accessory sex glands and copulatory apparatus. Insects reproduce sexually, most of them lay eggs, there are also viviparous species, in which the females give birth to live larvae (some aphids, gadflies, etc.).

  After a certain period of embryonic development, larvae emerge from the laid eggs. Further development of larvae in insects of various orders can occur with incomplete or complete transformation (Table 16).

  Life cycle. Insects are dioecious animals with internal fertilization. According to the type of postembryonic development, insects are distinguished with incomplete (in highly organized) and complete (in higher) metamorphosis (transformation). Complete metamorphosis includes the stages of egg, larva, pupa and adult.

  In insects with incomplete metamorphosis, a young individual emerges from the egg, similar in structure to the adult insect, but differing from it in the absence of wings and underdevelopment of the genital organs - a nymph. They are often called larvae, which is not entirely accurate. Its living conditions are similar to adult forms. After several molts, the insect reaches its maximum size and turns into adult form- imago.

  In insects with complete metamorphosis, the eggs hatch into larvae that differ sharply in structure (they have a worm-like body) and habitat from the adult forms; Thus, mosquito larvae live in water, and imaginal forms live in the air. The larvae grow and go through a series of stages, separated from each other by molts. During the last molt, a stationary stage, the pupa, is formed. The pupae do not feed. At this time, metamorphosis occurs, the larval organs undergo decay, and imago organs develop in their place. Upon completion of metamorphosis, a sexually mature, winged individual emerges from the pupa.

  Table 16. Development of insects	Type of development
  	Superorder I. Insects with incomplete metamorphosis	Superorder 2. Insects with complete metamorphosis
  Number of stages	3 (egg, larva, adult insect)	4 (egg, larva, pupa, adult insect)
  Larva	Similar to an adult insect in external structure, lifestyle and nutrition; differs in smaller size, wings are absent or incompletely developed	Differs from an adult insect in external structure, lifestyle and nutrition
  Doll	Absent	Yes (in the immobile pupa, histolysis of larval tissues and histogenesis of adult tissues and organs occurs)
  Squad	Order Orthoptera (Orthoptera)	Order Coleoptera, or beetles (Coleoptera) Order Lepidoptera, or butterflies (Lepidoptera) Order Hymenoptera (Hymenoptera)

  Class Overview

  The insect class is divided into more than 30 orders. The characteristics of the main groups are given in Table. 17.

  Beneficial insects

  Honey bee or house bee [show] A family usually lives in a hive, which consists of 40-70 thousand bees, of which one is the queen, several hundred male drones, and the rest are worker bees. The queen is larger in size than other bees; she has well-developed reproductive organs and an ovipositor. Every day the queen lays from 300 to 1000 eggs (on average this is 1.0-1.5 million over a lifetime). Drones are slightly larger and thicker than worker bees, and they do not have wax glands. Drones develop from unfertilized eggs. Worker bees are underdeveloped females that are unable to reproduce; their ovipositor turned into an organ of defense and attack - a sting. The sting consists of three sharp needles, between them there is a channel for removing the poison produced in a special gland. In connection with feeding on nectar, the gnawing mouthparts have changed significantly; when eating, they form a kind of tube - the proboscis, through which nectar is absorbed using the muscles of the pharynx. The upper jaws also serve to build honeycombs and other construction work. The nectar is collected in the enlarged crop and turns into honey, which the bee regurgitates into the cells of the honeycomb. There are numerous hairs on the bee's head and chest; when the insect flies from flower to flower, pollen sticks to the hairs. The bee cleans pollen from the body, and it accumulates in the form of a lump, or pollen, in special recesses - baskets on the hind legs. Bees drop pollen into the cells of the honeycomb and fill it with honey. Beebread is formed, which the bees feed the larvae with. On the last four segments of the bee's abdomen there are wax glands, which outwardly look like light spots - speculums. The wax comes out through the pores and hardens in the form of thin triangular plates. The bee chews these plates with its jaws and builds honeycomb cells from them. The wax glands of a worker bee begin to secrete wax on the 3-5th day of its life, reach its greatest development on the 12-28th day, then decrease and degenerate. In the spring, worker bees begin collecting pollen and nectar, and the queen lays one fertilized egg in each cell of the comb. After three days, larvae hatch from the eggs. Worker bees feed them “milk” for 5 days, a substance rich in proteins and lipids, which is secreted by the maxillary glands, and then bee bread. After a week, the larva weaves a cocoon inside the cell and pupates. After 11-12 days, a young worker bee emerges from the pupa. Some days she does various jobs inside the hive - cleans the cells, feeds the larvae, builds honeycombs, and then begins to fly out for a bribe (nectar and pollen). In slightly larger cells, the queen lays unfertilized eggs, from which drones develop. Their development lasts several days longer than the development of worker bees. The queen lays fertilized eggs in large queen cells. From them larvae hatch, which the bees constantly feed with “milk”. From these larvae young queens develop. Before the young queen emerges, the old one tries to destroy the queen cell, but the worker bees prevent her from doing this. Then the old queen with some of the worker bees flies out of the hive - swarming occurs. A swarm of bees is usually transferred to a free hive. The young queen flies out of the hive along with the drones, and returns after fertilization. Bees have a well-developed suprapharyngeal node, or brain, which is distinguished by the strong development of mushroom-shaped, or stalked, bodies, with which the complex behavior of bees is associated. Having found flowers rich in nectar, the bee returns to the hive and begins to describe figures on the honeycomb that resemble the number 8; At the same time, her abdomen oscillates. This peculiar dance signals to other bees in which direction and at what distance the bribe is located. Complex reflexes and the instincts that determine the behavior of bees are the result of a long historical development; they are inherited. People have been raising bees in apiaries since ancient times. The collapsible frame hive was an outstanding achievement in the development of beekeeping; it was invented by the Ukrainian beekeeper P.I. Prokopovich in 1814. The beneficial activity of bees lies primarily in the cross-pollination of many plants. With bee pollination, the yield of buckwheat increases by 35-40%, sunflower - by 40-45%, and cucumbers in greenhouses - by more than 50%. Bee Honey- valuable food product, it is also used with therapeutic purpose for diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, heart, liver, kidneys. Royal jelly and bee glue (propolis) are used as medicinal preparations. Bee (wasp) venom is also used in medicine. Beeswax is widely used in various industries - electrical engineering, metallurgy, chemical production. The annual global honey harvest is about 500 thousand tons. [show] Silkworm known to people for over 4 thousand years. It can no longer exist in nature; it is bred in artificial conditions. Butterflies don't feed. Sedentary, whitish female silkworms lay 400-700 eggs (the so-called greena). From them, in special rooms on racks, caterpillars are hatched and fed with mulberry leaves. The caterpillar develops within 26-40 days; During this time she sheds four times. An adult caterpillar weaves a cocoon from silk thread, which is produced in its silk gland. One caterpillar secretes a thread up to 1000 m long. The caterpillar wraps this thread around itself in the form of a cocoon, inside which it pupates. A small part of the cocoons are left alive - later butterflies hatch from them and lay eggs. Most cocoons are killed by hot steam or exposure electromagnetic field ultra-high frequency (in this case, the pupae inside the cocoons heat up to 80-90 ° C in a few seconds). Then the cocoons are unwound on special machines. More than 90 g of raw silk is obtained from 1 kg of cocoons.

  If it were possible to accurately calculate the harm and benefit of insects for National economy, then perhaps the benefits would significantly outweigh the losses. Insects provide cross-pollination of about 150 species of cultivated plants - garden, buckwheat, cruciferous, sunflower, clover, etc. Without insects, they would not produce seeds and would die themselves. The aroma and color of higher flowering plants were developed in the process of evolution as special signals to attract bees and other pollinating insects. Insects such as burying beetles, dung beetles, and some others are of great sanitary importance. Dung beetles were specially brought to Australia from Africa, because without them, large amounts of manure would accumulate on pastures, which would interfere with grass growth.

  Insects play a significant role in soil formation processes. Soil animals (insects, centipedes, etc.) destroy fallen leaves and other plant debris, assimilating only 5-10% of their mass. However, soil microorganisms decompose the excrement of these animals faster than mechanically crushed leaves. Soil insects, along with earthworms and other soil inhabitants, play a very important role in mixing it. Lacquer bugs from India and Southeast Asia produce a valuable technical product - shellac; other species of bugs produce valuable natural paint carmine.

  Harmful insects

  Many types of insects damage agricultural and forest crops; up to 3,000 species of pests have been registered in Ukraine alone.

  [show] Adult beetles eat young tree leaves in spring (they eat leaves of oak, beech, maple, elm, hazel, poplar, willow, walnut, fruit trees). Females lay eggs in the soil. The larvae feed on thin roots and humus until autumn, overwinter deep in the soil, and the following spring continue to eat roots (mostly herbaceous plants). After the second winter in the soil, the larvae begin to feed on the roots of trees and shrubs; young plantings with an underdeveloped root system may die due to damage. After the third (or fourth) wintering, the larvae pupate. Depending on the geographic latitude of the area and climatic conditions, the development of May beetle lasts from three to five years. [show] The Colorado potato beetle began damaging potatoes in 1865 in North America in the state of Colorado (hence the name of the pest). After the First World War it was introduced to Europe and quickly spread east to the Volga and the North Caucasus. Females lay eggs on potato leaves, 12-80 eggs per clutch. Larvae and beetles feed on leaves. In a month, a beetle can eat 4 g, a larva - 1 g of leaves. If we consider that on average a female lays 700 eggs, then the second generation of one female can destroy 1 ton of potato leaves. The larvae pupate in the soil, and adult beetles overwinter there. In Europe, unlike North America, no natural enemies Colorado potato beetle, which would restrain its reproduction. Common beet weevil [show] Adult beetles eat sugar beet seedlings in the spring, sometimes completely destroying the crops. The female lays eggs in the soil, the larvae feed on the roots and root crops of sugar beets. At the end of summer, the larvae pupate in the soil, and the young beetles overwinter. Bug harmful turtle [show] The bug bug harms wheat, rye and other grains. Adult bedbugs overwinter under fallen leaves in forest belts and bushes. From here in April-May they fly to winter crops. At first, bedbugs feed by piercing stems with their proboscis. Then the females lay 70-100 eggs on the leaves of the cereals. The larvae feed on the cell sap of stems and leaves, and later move to ovaries and ripening grains. Having pierced the grain, the bug secretes saliva into it, which dissolves the proteins. Damage causes the grain to dry out, reduce its germination capacity and deteriorate its baking qualities. [show] The forewings are light brown, sometimes almost black. They show a typical “scoop pattern”, represented by a kidney-shaped, round or wedge-shaped spot edged with a black line. The hind wings are light gray. The antennae of males are weakly combed, those of females are thread-like. Wingspan 35-45 mm. The caterpillars are earthy gray in color, with a dark head. The Fall Armyworm caterpillar in the fall damages (gnaws) mainly seedlings of winter cereals (hence the name of the pest), to a lesser extent vegetable crops and root vegetables; in the southern regions it harms sugar beets. Adult caterpillars overwinter burrowed into the soil in fields sown with winter crops. In spring they pupate quickly. Butterflies emerging from pupae in May fly at night and at dusk. Females lay eggs on millet and row crops - sugar beets, cabbage, onions, etc. and in places with sparse vegetation, so they are often attracted to plowed fields. Caterpillars destroy sown grains, gnaw plant seedlings in the root collar area, and eat leaves. Very gluttonous. If 10 caterpillars live on 1 m 2 of crops, then they destroy all the plants and “bald patches” appear in the fields. At the end of July they pupate; in August, second-generation butterflies emerge from the pupae and lay eggs on weeds on the stubble or seedlings of winter crops. One female winter armyworm can lay up to 2,000 eggs. In Ukraine, two generations of winter armyworm develop during the growing season. [show] One of our most common butterflies. The upper side of the wings is white, the outer corners are black. Males have no black spots on the forewings; females have 2 black round spots and 1 club-shaped spot on each wing. The hind wings of both males and females are the same - white, with the exception of a black wedge-shaped spot at the anterior edge. The underside of the hind wings is a characteristic yellowish-green color. Wingspan up to 60 mm. The body of the cabbage plant is covered with thick, very short hairs, giving it a velvety appearance. The variegated coloring of the caterpillars is a warning that they are inedible. The caterpillars are bluish-green, with yellow stripes and small black dots, and the abdomen is yellow. In cabbage butterfly caterpillars, the poisonous gland is located on the lower surface of the body, between the head and the first segment. To defend themselves, they regurgitate a green paste from their mouths, which is mixed with secretions from the poisonous gland. These secretions are a caustic bright green liquid with which the caterpillars try to coat the attacking enemy. For small birds, a dose of several individuals of these animals can be fatal. Swallowed cabbage caterpillars cause the death of domestic ducks. People who collected these insects with their bare hands sometimes ended up in the hospital. The skin on my hands became red, inflamed, my hands were swollen and itchy. Cabbage butterflies fly during the day in May-June and with a short break throughout the second half of summer and autumn. They feed on the nectar of flowers. Eggs are laid in clusters of 15-200 eggs on the underside of a cabbage leaf. In total, the butterfly lays up to 250 eggs. Young caterpillars live in groups, scrape off the pulp of cabbage leaves, while older ones eat up all the pulp of the leaf. If on cabbage leaf 5-6 caterpillars feed, then they eat it whole, leaving only large veins. To pupate, the caterpillars crawl onto surrounding objects - a tree trunk, a fence, etc. During the growing season, two or three generations of cabbage whites develop. Cabbage grass is common in the European part former USSR, in Siberia this pest is not present, since butterflies cannot withstand severe winter frosts. The damage caused by cabbage is very great. Often many hectares of cabbage are completely destroyed by this pest. The flights of butterflies are interesting. When the butterflies reproduce strongly, they gather in large numbers and fly over considerable distances. [show] Willow woodborer - Cossus cossus (L.) The willow borer damages the bast and wood of poplars, willows, oaks, other deciduous trees and fruit trees. Butterflies appear in nature starting from the end of June, mainly in July, and depending on the geographical location, in some places even before mid-August. They fly slowly in the late evening. A year lasts a maximum of 14 days. During the day they sit in a characteristic position with their chest reclining on the lower part of the trunk. Females lay eggs in groups of 15-50 pieces in bark cracks, damaged areas, cancerous wounds of trunks at heights of up to 2 m. Caterpillars hatch after 14 days. First, the bast tissues are eaten together. On older trees with thick bark in the lower part of the trunk, the caterpillars eat out individual long, irregularly running oval tunnels in the cross section only after the first wintering. The walls of the passages are destroyed by a special liquid and are brown or black. On thinner trunks with smooth bark, the caterpillars penetrate the wood earlier, usually within a month after hatching. The caterpillars push out wood chips and excrement through the lower hole. At the end of the growing season, when the leaves fall, the feeding of the caterpillars stops, which overwinter in the tunnels until the leaves bloom, i.e., until April - May, when the caterpillars continue to feed in separate tunnels again until autumn, overwinter one more time and finish feeding. They pupate either at the end of a circular passage, where a flight hole closed with wood chips is prepared in advance, or in the ground, near a damaged trunk, in a cocoon of wood chips. The pupal stage lasts 3-6 weeks. Before departure, the pupa, with the help of spines, protrudes halfway out of the flight hole or out of the cocoon, so that the butterfly can more easily leave the exuvium. The generation is maximally biennial. The willow woodborer is distributed throughout Europe, mainly in the middle and southern parts. It is found throughout the forest zone of the European part of Russia, in the Caucasus, Siberia, and also in Far East. Known in western and northern China and Central Asia. The butterfly's forewings are gray-brown to dark gray with a marbled pattern and vague gray-white spots, as well as dark transverse wavy lines. The hind wings are dark brown with matte dark wavy lines. The chest is dark on top, whitish towards the belly. The dark abdomen has light rings. The male has a wingspan of 65-70 mm, the female - from 80 to 95 mm. The female's abdomen is completed with a retractable, clearly visible ovipositor. The caterpillar is cherry-red immediately after hatching, and later turns flesh-red. The head and occipital plate are shiny black. An adult caterpillar is 8-11 cm (most often 8-9 cm), then it is a yellowish meat color, brown on top with a purple tint. The yellow-brown occipital scute has two dark spots. The breathing hole is brown. The egg is oval-longitudinal, light brown with black stripes, dense, 1.2 mm in size. Many insects, especially those with piercing-sucking oral apparatus, carry pathogens of various diseases. Malarial plasmodium [show] Plasmodium falciparum, the causative agent of malaria, enters the human bloodstream through the bite of a malaria mosquito. Back in the 30s of the XX century. In India, over 100 million people fell ill with malaria every year; in the USSR, in 1935, 9 million malaria cases were registered. In the last century, malaria was eradicated in the Soviet Union, and the incidence rate has sharply decreased in India. The center of malaria incidence has moved to Africa. Theoretical and practical recommendations for the successful fight against malaria in the USSR and neighboring countries were developed by V. N. Beklemishev and his students. The nature of damage to plant tissue depends on the structure of the pest’s oral apparatus. Insects with gnawing mouthparts gnaw off or eat away sections of the leaf blade, stem, root, fruit or make tunnels in them. Insects with piercing-sucking mouthparts pierce the integumentary tissues of animals or plants and feed on blood or cell sap. They cause direct harm to a plant or animal, and also often carry pathogens of viral, bacterial and other diseases. Annual losses in agriculture from pests amount to about 25 billion rubles, in particular, damage from harmful insects in our country annually averages 4.5 billion rubles, in the USA - about 4 billion dollars. TO dangerous pests cultivated plants in the conditions of Ukraine include about 300 species, in particular beetles, click beetle larvae, mole crickets, corn beetles, Colorado potato beetles, common beet weevils, turtle bugs, meadow and stem moths, winter and cabbage cutworms, hawthorn, gypsy moth, ringed silkworm, codling moth, American white butterfly, beet root aphid, etc. Control of harmful insects Designed to combat harmful insects complex system preventive measures, including agro- and forestry, mechanical, physical, chemical and biological. Preventive measures consist of observing certain sanitary and hygienic standards that prevent the mass reproduction of harmful insects. In particular, timely cleaning or destruction of waste and garbage helps reduce the number of flies. Draining swamps leads to a decrease in mosquito numbers. Compliance with the rules of personal hygiene (washing hands before eating, thoroughly washing fruits, vegetables, etc.) is also of great importance. Agrotechnical and forestry measures, in particular the destruction of weeds, correct crop rotations, proper soil preparation, the use of healthy and sedimentary material, pre-sowing seed cleaning, good managed care behind cultivated plants, create unfavorable conditions for mass reproduction of pests. Mechanical measures consist of the direct destruction of harmful insects manually or using special devices: flycatchers, adhesive tapes and jars, trapping grooves, etc. In winter, wintering nests of hawthorn and lacewing caterpillars are removed from trees in gardens and burned. Physical measures - use to kill some insects physical factors. Many moths, beetles, and dipterans fly towards the light. With the help of special devices - light traps - you can promptly learn about the appearance of certain pests and begin to fight them. For disinfection of citrus fruits infected with Mediterranean fruit fly, they are cooled. Barn pests are destroyed using high frequency currents. Therefore, integrated pest management, which involves a combination of chemical, biological, agrotechnical and other plant protection methods with the maximum use of agrotechnical and biological methods, is of particular importance. Integrated control methods provide for chemical treatments only in areas that threaten a sharp increase in pest numbers, and not for continuous treatment of all areas. With the aim of nature conservation, widespread use is envisaged biological agents plant protection.