Unusual facts about insects. Interesting facts from the life of insects. The most important units of the class

Insects are one of the most numerous classes on the planet. How many varieties of these insects surround us!

We tried to collect in our article the most interesting and amazing facts about insects, show them from a side still unknown to you.

1. Attacus Atlas - a nocturnal butterfly, considered the largest in the world. Sometimes people mistake this midnight beauty for a bird - its size is so large! Just imagine - the wingspan of this giantess reaches 30 centimeters.

2. Flies are flying rockets. Try to catch this buzzing “plane” with your bare hands - you’re unlikely to succeed. Speed ordinary fly- 6.5 km/h, but the horsefly flies almost four times faster - 22.4 km/h. In addition, flies have an amazing reaction: they dodge danger with lightning speed and remain unharmed.

3. The flea is a jumping biter. The jump length of this bloodsucking insect is 33 centimeters. If we translate the value in relation to a person, it will be equal to 213 meters! Do you know at least one athlete who can cover such a distance in one jump? That's right - there is no such thing, because people cannot do it, but a flea is as easy as shelling pears.

4. – rapid all-consuming power. There is no other name for locusts other than swallowing, because one individual eats an amount of food equal to its own weight. It is not surprising that after the locusts visit the field, farmers can only humbly wipe away their tears! By the way, one horde of locusts consists of 50 million individuals.

5. Why is it buzzing? Because in one minute she manages to make 11,400 wing flaps. It goes without saying that the air begins to ring from so many tremors!

6. A giant grasshopper, caught on the border of Malaysia and Thailand, broke all records not only in size (its length was 25.5 cm), but also in long jump. One of his leaps was more than 4.5 meters.

7. Bees and wasps are a real chemical laboratory. No, this is not a joke, it’s just that bee venom consists exclusively of acids, but the wasp is a producer of an alkaline poisonous substance.

8. Domestic cockroaches: headless knights. What happens if you deprive a cockroach of its head? Do you think he will die? You didn’t guess: he’ll live like a darling – for two whole weeks! Just some kind of mysticism!

9. Bees vs snakes: who is more poisonous? It turns out - bees. It is estimated that many people die from bee stings every year. more people than from snake bites.

11. Dragonflies are considered the fastest among insects. They accelerate to 57 km/h.

12. If an ordinary forest ant lives for about a year, then in laboratory conditions these insects sometimes live up to 20 years! Maybe scientists are giving them an elixir of longevity?

13. Do you want to know your body temperature? Take a minute and count how many times the insect chirps during this time. Divide the resulting number in half, add 9 and divide by two again.

14. A spider that lives in the Namimb Desert escapes from its enemies by rolling into a hole. He digs these holes for himself. When wasps attack him, he suddenly rushes down the slope of the pit and rolls like a wheel, his speed being 1 m/s.

15. Medicine ants from the genus Dorylus can not only sting, but also heal wounds. Therefore, local residents actively use them in medicine.

16. The alligator beetle from Central America has an unusual head shape. Its other name is lantern. Look for yourself - the head is truly non-standard, reminiscent of a crocodile.

They are voracious, hardy and ubiquitous - these are not all the interesting facts about insects. Want to know more? A selection of 15 reliable information from the life of representatives of the largest class of animals on Earth will help you with this.

1. Mosquitoes feed on plant sap and nectar. But some of them suck blood not out of hunger, but to obtain proteins necessary for bearing offspring. Thus, only females are bloodsuckers, and males are absolute vegetarians.
2. Despite the fact that the female mosquito is forced to consume blood, she chooses the “dish” meticulously. Females are bitten by females more often than males, and blondes are preferred to brunettes. Gourmets identify victims by smell: they like fat people, athletes, pregnant women, owners of the second and third blood groups.

   

3. One of the reasons for the prevalence of mosquitoes in environment– greater viability of their eggs. Unfavourable conditions the offspring of insects don't care. Mosquito eggs can lie in cold, dry soil for up to 3 years, and then come to life when the weather warms and the soil becomes moist.

   

4. The largest representative among Lepidoptera is Agrippa (Tizania). The butterfly, whose wingspan is 30 cm, belongs to the moth family and lives in Latin America. The second record holder in the “largest” category is Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing.

   

5. The smallest butterfly, Acetosea, has a wingspan of only 2 mm.. You can see these nocturnal babies in the UK. The reticuloses that live on the Canary Islands are just a little short of the title of “smallest butterflies”.

   

6. Live to the fullest - this seems to be the life motto of ephemeris or mayfly butterflies. In one day, these insects manage to be born, leave offspring and die. Such butterflies do not need to look for food, since their digestive organs are filled with air.

   

7. The most poisonous spider, according to the compilers of the popular collection of the Guinness Book of Records, is the “Brazilian wanderer”. The insect received its nickname for its excessive activity.

   

8. There are cannibals among spiders. A clear confirmation of this is the black widow, which lives in Eurasia, Australia and Oceania. After mating, the female of this species devours the smaller male, as she spends a lot of energy during the mating season.

   

9. The most big spider on Earth is considered a goliath tarantula (theraphosa blond). The insect lives in the tropics of Latin America, eating small snakes, mice, frogs and lizards. The size of the body with straightened legs is 25–28 cm.

   

10. Ants are one of the oldest insects on the planet.. Their age is 100–130 million years. It is also interesting that having survived to this day, they have practically not changed in appearance. The reason for this adaptability, according to scientists, lies in the social way of life.
11. Some of the ants not only hunt, but also engage in cattle breeding. Herder ants “graze” scale insects, leafhoppers, aphids, and keep homoptera in “stalls.” The reward for their labors is the sweet excrement of “cattle” that goes into food.

    

12. The main occupation of Amazon ants is wars, during which they capture the pupae of strangers. The captives are then used as slaves. The militants themselves are not able to feed themselves, since they cannot organize their daily life.

    

13. Not only spiders are poisonous, but also caterpillars. The most dangerous larva butterflies - Lonomy, living in American tropical forests. She has a calm disposition and inconspicuous coloring, but the spines on the caterpillar’s ​​body contain a strong toxin that acts as an anticoagulant.

    

14. A stunning example of survivability - a cockroach. With his head severed, he can live for weeks. To respond to touch and move, the insect does not need a brain. Instead, basic reflex functions are performed by clusters nerve tissue bodies.

    

15. The most voracious insect in the world - the desert locust. This pest, which lives in Asia and Africa, eats as much as it weighs every day. A flock of 50 million individuals per day destroys food that would be enough for 1 thousand people for six months.

    

There are many more insects on the planet than all other animal species. They were around long before dinosaurs and some of them have every chance of outliving humans. Insects are surprisingly flexible and able to adapt to the most unexpected conditions. Even today scientists are not sure. What all types of insects were described and accurately identified life cycle. Exactly the most interesting insects– familiar and not so familiar – and became the subject of our article.

1. Dragonflies fly the fastest among insects, reaching an insane speed of 57 km/h.

2. There are interesting beetles - bombardiers. He developed a unique defense mechanism. The beetle shoots a stream of chemicals at the enemy that heat up to 100C. The shot is also so loud that the beetle fully lives up to its name.

3. It is difficult to imagine the development of entire regions without dung beetles. They consume manure and process it. There are beetles that specialize in a certain type of dung. In some regions, these bugs account for up to 80% of cattle manure processing. Scientists say that pastures exist only thanks to dung beetles. They also inhibit the development of flies that lay eggs in manure. The beetles damage the larvae during their activity and prevent the flies from multiplying too much.

4. The most powerful organic toxin is the caterpillar of the Lonomia butterfly. She lives in the forests South America, but sometimes the 7-centimeter caterpillar wanders into residential areas. A light touch on the caterpillar is enough to cause severe burning and bleeding in the affected area over time. Lada may develop stomach bleeding or kidney failure. In total, lonomia accounts for 1.7% of deaths, while rattlesnakes account for 1.8%. But it should be noted that the lonomy releases only 0.001 of the volume of venom injected by the snake. It is clear then how much more toxic the poison of the small caterpillar is.

5. Bullet ants attack enemies from trees. Their sharp sting (for which Paraponera clavata gets its name) is strong and sharp, penetrating the toughest surfaces. Just 10-20 bites can kill a person, and these ants also scream...

6. The New Zealand giant weta weighs the most of all insects on Earth - up to 71 grams!

7. It is believed that flies, ordinary house flies, do not fly far from their breeding sites. But scientists have found that thanks to the action of the wind, these insects are able to travel up to 45 km.

8. The largest nocturnal butterfly, Attacus Altas, is even hunted with a bow and arrow. In flight, it resembles a bird with an elegant wingspan of up to 30 cm.

9. Crickets have ears unusual location- on the front legs. In addition, crickets make it easy to find out the current air temperature. The temperature is calculated using the following formula (number of chirps per minute/2+9)/2.

10. Cicadas, relatives of crickets, hold the record for the loudest sounds produced. But the most interesting thing is. that only male cicadas make sounds; their females are mute.

.
A good and interesting blog where you can find.
Not expensive and high quality.
Effective and.
Find out more about.

1. Insects are the first living creatures that 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.

2. Now there are about 20 thousand species of bees in the world. And to produce 500 g of honey, one bee needs to fly from the hive to the flower and back 10 million times.

3. A female cockroach is capable of laying more than two million eggs in a year. In addition, a cockroach can live for nine days without a head.

4. The weight of insects that all the spiders on Earth eat in a year is greater than the combined weight of all people living on the planet.

5. There are about 35 thousand. known species spiders and new ones are opening all the time.

6. Snow scorpions contain antifreeze in their blood, which allows them to withstand temperatures down to minus 6 degrees Celsius. However, if you take such a scorpion in your hand, it will die.

7. 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.

8. Ants never sleep. There are almost as many species of ants in the world (8,800) as there are species of birds (9,000).

9. Butterflies taste food using their hind legs. And the color of their wings comes from tiny, overlapping scales that reflect light.

10. Aborigines prepare wood larvae “witchetti” by rolling them in hot ashes. Thus, they taste like an omelette.

11. Bees have five eyes. Three at the top of the head and two at the front. The honey bee flaps its wings at a rate of 11,400 times per minute, creating a characteristic buzzing sound.

12. There are about 400 thousand known species of beetles. The largest size, the titan beetle, can reach 17 cm.

13. Dragonflies are the fastest flying insects. Their speed reaches 57 km/h.

14. Witchetti larvae are best eaten alive. Ten large larvae provide the adult with all the proteins, carbohydrates and fats.

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

16. Baby Amarobia spiders eat their mother after birth. Some females begin to devour males even during mating. Thus, the deceased father becomes food for his offspring.

17. Crickets have ears located on their front legs, in addition, you can determine the temperature from crickets: to do this, you need to count the number of chirps per minute, divide by two, then add nine and divide by two again. The result will be the temperature in degrees Celsius.

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

19. Grasshoppers can jump a distance that is more than 40 times the length of their body, and a flea can jump a distance that is 130 times its length.

20. On the planet, more than 26 billion insects live in every square mile of inhabited areas. Scientists estimate that there are another 5-10 million species unknown to science.

21. Tiny stinging insects, midges, flap their wings at an incredible rate of 62,760 times per minute.

23. House flies usually live near the places where they hatched, but it turned out that they can move up to 45 km when exposed to wind.

24. The largest moth in the world is Attacus Altas. With a wingspan of 30 cm, it is often mistaken for a bird.

25. A swarm of desert locusts can consist of 50 billion insects. Since each locust can eat its own weight in food, in a day this swarm eats four times as much food by weight as the entire population of New York City.