Insect locust: what do you eat? Where does he live?

Our world is amazingly beautiful. It is rich in various plants, animals, insects. Some individuals seem to be created in order to deliver aesthetic pleasure to a person , to caress the eye, to give joy from the realization of all the charm of some forms of life. However, there is no day without night. There are creatures in the world not only having a frightening appearance, but also harming a person with their vital activity. An insect locust is a good example of such a creation. How dangerous are they?

Insect Locust: Description

Locusts and the so-called filly together constitute a single superfamily - acridoids. This is the first large group, belonging to the order of orthopteran insects. If we compare locusts with her closest relatives, grasshoppers, you can see that she has more shortened antennae, the organs of hearing have unusual specificity, and the female has a shorter ovipositor. Most of the orthopteran insects are born "musicians" of the natural world. The locust insect is not an exception.

Where does this pest live? In Russia, live about six hundred species of locusts, terrorizing the majority of the southern regions of the country. In the afternoon, her chirping is muffled by the singing of grasshoppers, due to the multiplicity of the pack. The device, which allows locusts to make a melody, is on the hind legs of hind legs, as well as on the elytra. On the inside of the thigh is the order of the tubercles. The vein here is seriously thickened. Making accelerated movement of the hip, the insect touches it with tubercles, which leads to the occurrence of intermittent chirping. The organs of hearing in locusts are on the sides of the first segment of the belly. In some species, the lower wings are colored with bright colors. In case of danger, the locust sharply flies up and repels the enemy with a loud song and a motley coloring.

What does the locust eat?

Insect locusts, in contrast to relatives - grasshoppers, feed exclusively on plants, not disdain and agricultural crops. This pest has a really brutal appetite. He eats all the plants that come in the way. If a flock of locusts reaches the fields where a person grows corn, corn and other crops, a region that has been exposed to the terror of an insect can suffer from hunger.

An adult locust consumes vegetation a day equal in mass to its own body. Throughout life, it can destroy more than three hundred grams of green mass. The offspring left by one female locust within one summer eats the amount of food sufficient to feed two sheep. Flocks of a pest for several hours can quietly destroy not one thousand hectares of crops.

Locust species

Harmful species of an insect are usually divided into herd individuals and mares, living alone. In the south of the Russian Federation, a migratory locust insect is especially common. Photos of this pest can be viewed in any biological encyclopedia. Locust lives very secretly. During mass reproduction, the larvae are grouped into one large cluster, called a kuliga. Sometimes its area is just huge. If larvae in one region hatch a lot, they immediately begin to migrate. Otherwise they remain in place and lead a sedentary, solitary lifestyle.

Flocks of Locusts

In the fifties of the twentieth century in North Africa, in the city of Morocco, people noticed a huge flock of locusts, the length of which reached two hundred and fifty kilometers, and a width of twenty. In previous centuries, there were cases when hordes of this insect reached Europe. Some flocks numbered forty billion. They accumulate in so-called flying clouds. Their area sometimes equals to thousands of square kilometers.

Wings of an insect are rubbing during the flight - a squeak is heard. When a cloud of millions of birds flies, the noise produced to it is mistaken for thunder. Insect locusts, accumulating in adult flocks, can overcome a day about a hundred kilometers. While flying at the same speed at fifteen kilometers per hour. In history, cases were recorded where small swarms of locusts traveled across the ocean, crossing a distance of almost six thousand kilometers.

How does the locust grow?

The insect locust breeds with its short-lived ovipositor. As a rule, the female of this pest lays eggs directly into the ground. It emits a liquid mass resembling glue. Organic matter freezes with time. Using it, the insect is cementing around the future pests pieces of soil. So-called kobyshka - a strong cocoon for eggs with solid walls. If the "population density" of insects becomes too large, locusts gather in a flock and fly away from their habitat. So it "unloads" the field, which is not able to feed more all the people living on it.