5 facts about insects that inspire respect and awe
Miscellaneous / / April 04, 2023
Moth hawks scare bats with their genitals, leafhoppers invented gears, and bees love to drink.
1. Insects do not mind drinking to relax
All sorts of insects flying and crawling around us, upon closer inspection, look like absolutely alien creatures. If you don't believe me, take a look at them under a microscope or macrophotographs. It's just the embodiment of Alien and Predator at the same time. And also their strange habits like spewing digestive juices on live prey...
But in fact, insects are closer to us than you think, and nothing human is alien to them.
So, these creatures are familiar with the cheerful effect of alcohol and never mind knocking over a glass. Well, figuratively speaking - because they get alcohol not from dishes, but from fermented fruits.
For example, Drosophila fruit flies do not pay special attention to fresh fruit, but to rotten ones, because they contain ethanol derived from fermented sugars. At first, however, when the flies tryK. Kaun. A Drosophila model for alcohol reward / Nature Neuroscience
alcohol, it disgusts them, as it does people who have never drunk. But then, when alcohol affects the brain neurons of fruit flies, their addictions change. They begin to enjoy alcohol and seek it purposefully.Moreover, fruit flies that were deprived of the opportunity to mate with females consumed moreG. Shohat Ophir. Sexual Deprivation Increases Ethanol Intake in Drosophila / Science ethanol, and when they were returned to the opposite sex, the craving for alcohol decreased. Apparently, not only people abandoned lovers seek to pour wine over grief.
Bees are also not fools to drink: scientists discoveredT. A. mixson. The behavior and social communication of honey bees (Apis mellifera carnica Poll.) under the influence of alcohol / Psychological Reportsthat intoxicated these insects lessJ. Bozic. Reduced ability of ethanol drinkers for social communication in honeybees (Apis mellifera carnica Poll.) / Alcohol they fly, work, dance and communicate with hive mates, but they mostly sit in one place and clean themselves. When drunk, they become less aggressive and do not react so briskly to the dangers around.
2. Crickets can be used to make bread
It is traditionally believed that insects are eaten only in the most exotic cuisines of China, Africa and other distant countries. But microbiologists from the Polytechnic University of the Marche in Ancona, in Italy, decidedA. Osimani. Bread enriched with cricket powder (Acheta domesticus): A technological, microbiological and nutritional evaluation / Innovative Food Science & Emerging Technologies, that you should not ignore such a delicious source of protein, and created bread from crickets.
Well he is being doneBreads Made of Powdered Crickets May Be Loaded with Bacterial Spores / Live Science not entirely from insects, only about a third, everything else is ordinary flour. But the benefits of adding crickets to your food are clear: they are high in protein, essential amino acids, as well as fatty acids, which add calories. In addition, cricket bread has a longer shelf life and less staleness.
True, there are also disadvantages: the taste of such bread, according to those who have tried it, is a bit like cat food.
But if flour is made not from crickets, but from flour wormsWill Your Next Burger Be Ground‑Up Mealworms? /Live Science, the bread acquires an appetizing nutty flavor.
In addition, cricket flour containsBreads Made of Powdered Crickets May Be Loaded with Bacterial Spores / Live Science spores of many bacteria that live in these insects, so the raw materials for it have to be grown under sterile conditions and sometimes treated with gamma rays, but these are all solvable problems.
In general, insects in the future are quite mayBreads Made of Powdered Crickets May Be Loaded with Bacterial Spores / Live Science become an excellent source of food for mankind, because they are easier to grow than livestock, and they provide much more protein. It remains only to figure out how to make them tastier.
3. Insects invented gears long before humans
It is believed that gear mechanisms and gears are exclusively a human invention. However, insects have something to object to here.
The photograph above illustrates the structure of the leg of a leafhopper from the Issid family, Issus coleoptratus. it creationCreature with Interlocking Gears on Legs Discovered / Live Science with very powerful limbs that allow him to reach a speed of 4 meters per second from the start. Moreover, the direction of the jump and the place of landing Issus coleoptratus are exceptionally accurate.
Such speed and precision possibleM. Burrows. Interacting Gears Synchronize Propulsive Leg Movements in a Jumping Insect / Science thanks to a special knee joint that resembles a gear train. Ordinary nerve impulses would not allow an insect to synchronize the movements of its limbs when pushed from the surface, but the gears would.
True, such lapCreature with Interlocking Gears on Legs Discovered / Live Science only juveniles have it. Adults prefer to shed them when they molt because the teeth wear off over time and more. old it becomes difficult for insects to constantly regenerate them. Therefore, the gears are replaced by a conventional joint.
4. Grasshoppers hear with their belly and knees
Unlike humans and other mammals, insects do not have ears. Therefore, in order to recognize the sounds of the environment (an important skill for survival), they have to go to tricks.
In particular, in grasshoppers, crickets and locusts on the abdomen at the base of the legs are locatedAwesome Ears: The Weird World of Insect Hearing / Scientific American six thin membranes that perform the same function as the tympanic membrane in humans. She is vibratesThe insect that hears like a human, with ears on its knees / National Geographic, reading sound vibrations from the knees of an insect, and grasshoppers get the opportunity to hear in this way.
Hearing for these insects is simply necessary.
First, with the help membranesAwesome Ears: The Weird World of Insect Hearing / Scientific American on the stomach and sound-receiving knees, they catch the inviting chirping of the opposite sex during mating. Secondly, the membrane allows you to determine the approach of a predator or rival by sound.
A grasshopper can literally make out how loud stompsD. Otte. Insect Territoriality and its Evolution: Population Studies of Desert Grasshoppers on Creosote Bushes / Journal of Animal Ecology his opponent in order to estimate his size even before he comes into view. So the insect decides whether it is worth arranging battles for the territory or it is better to get out in advance if the enemy is obviously stronger.
5. Moth hawks escape bats by rubbing their genitals
Imagine: you butterflyhawk moth flying through the night to find a mate and fulfill her destiny given by mother nature. And then a hefty bat with extremely suspicious intentions flies towards you, like a diving attack aircraft. Your actions?
Male Moth Moths knowKinky! Hawkmoths Rub Genitals to Ward Off Bats / Live Sciencehow to get out of this situation. They stretch out their genitals to their full length and rub them frantically against their abdomens.
When the scales on the genitals of the hawk hawk come into contact with the lower part of its body, ultrasonic noise is heard, which interferes with the work of the sonar of bats.
Thus, the hawk disorients the enemy and increases his chances to break away from the chase.
Female hawks too ableKinky! Hawkmoths Rub Genitals to Ward Off Bats / Live Science scare away predators by making similar sounds, only they, on the contrary, draw their genitals into the body.
Not only thugs are fightingA. J. Corcoran. How do tiger moths jam bat sonar? / Journal of Experimental Biology with mice using ultrasoundTiger moths jam the sonar of bats / National Geographic. Bear butterflies, for example, stun them with clicks that soundThese toxic tiger moths warn bats with sonar clicks / Science like a creaky floorboard. True, they do this with the help of special scales on the chest and wings.
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