Do you think insects are just a nuisance? Do you want the world to be free from these harmful pests? Do you spray them, hit them, or step on them at every opportunity? Why not try to learn about their world before declaring war on any mistake that gets in your way? With a population that exceeds humans by about 200 million to 1, you can be sure that insects will stay here!
A quick look at some of these incredible creatures can convince you that the insects deserve your respect.
Master of flight, wonder of sight
Many insects are masters of flight. Let's look at some examples. Mosquitoes can fly inside out. Some can even fly in the rain without getting wet; yes, avoid raindrops! Some wasps and tropical bees hum at speeds of up to 72 kilometers per hour. An American monarch butterfly covered 3,010 km on its migration flight. Swimming flies can flap their wings more than a thousand times per second, much faster than hummingbirds. Dragonflies can fly backwards, which has sparked curiosity and further study by researchers.
If you've ever tried to crush a fly, you know that these insects have exceptionally sharp eyesight that combines with a reflection ten times faster than ours. Interestingly, the fly has a compound eye that contains thousands of six-sided lenses, each of which works independently. The fly's vision is then probably divided into small parts.
Some insects can sense ultraviolet light, which is invisible to humans. What looks like an opaque white butterfly to us is anything but boring for the male butterfly. Indeed, when viewed in ultraviolet light, the female has attractive patterns that are ideal for attracting the attention of the males who are wooing her.
The eyes of many insects serve as a compass. For example, bees and wasps can detect the plane of polarized light and thus localize the position of the sun in the sky, even if it is covered by clouds. Thanks to this ability, these insects can feed on their nests and still find their way home.
Love is in the air
In the insect world, sounds and smells are widely used to find a partner. This is no mean feat when your life expectancy is only a few weeks and potential partners are scarce.
Female emperor butterflies find a suitor who exudes a perfume so potent that a man can find its source nearly seven miles away. Their sensitive antennae can recognize a single odor molecule.
Crickets, grasshoppers and cicadas prefer to be heard. Even humans can hear the loving cicada, which turns your entire body into a soundboard. A large group of courting cicadas can make a louder bang than a pneumatic drill! On the other hand, some women don't make any noise.
Wake up and warm up
It is important for people who live in a cold climate to stay warm. The same goes for cold-blooded insects that wake up practically frozen every morning. The sun is their ally and they make the most of it.
Flies and beetles are attracted to flowers or leaves that bathe in the warmth of the sun in the early morning hours. Some beetles are often Australian water lilies that serve as botanical ovens, heating their flowers to 20 ° C, which is warmer than room temperature. In contrast, butterflies have a built-in heating system. When they need to warm up, they spread their wings, which act as efficient solar panels, and tilt them towards the sun.
Anyway, insects do!
In the insect world, almost all species play a different role, some of which are quite strange. For example, some moths seek the salt and moisture that give them life by sucking buffalo tears. Other insects, endowed with a strong antifreeze, live on the frozen mountains and spend their lives in search of insects that have succumbed to the cold.
As wise King Solomon observed thousands of years ago, the ant is particularly hardworking. Solomon wrote: “Go to the ant, laziness; Look at your ways and become wise. Although he has no commander, officer or ruler, he prepares his food even in summer; He even collected his food reserves at harvest. (Proverbs 6: 6-8) The absence of a leader is even more noticeable when you consider that some ant colonies can reach more than 20 million! This "Metropolis" insect works perfectly and each ant performs its specific function, so that the entire colony is nourished, protected and protected.
Perhaps the most impressive example of housing insects is the termite mound. Some are 7.5 m tall. * These architectural marvels have sophisticated air conditioning and underground mushroom gardens. What's even more surprising is that the termites that build these imposing pyramids are blind!
Why we need insects
Insects play an essential role in our daily life. In fact, about 30 percent of the food we eat depends on the pollination of bees, most of which are wild bees. However, pollination is just one of the useful functions of insects. Insects keep the land clean through an efficient recycling system as they recycle dead plants and animals. This enriches the soil and allows the released nutrients to grow. "Without insects," writes entomologist Christopher O'Toole in his book Alien Empire, "we would be inundated with dead plants and animal matter."
Insects miss each other a lot when their job isn't done. Think of what happened in Australia, where millions of cattle live. Herd inevitably spread crap everywhere. The dung was not only ugly, but also a breeding ground for the bush fly, a nuisance for people and cattle. So dung beetles were imported from Europe and Africa. The problem got solved!
Friends or foes?
It is true that some insects eat grain and transmit diseases. But only about 1% of the world's insects are considered pests, and many of them cause more damage because humans themselves have changed the environment. For example, the malaria-transmitting mosquito rarely disturbs the natives living in the equatorial forest. However, it creates havoc in cities on the edge of the forest, where there are many stagnant bodies of water.
Often times, humans can naturally control insect pests that attack plants, either through crop rotation or through the introduction or restraint of natural predators. Ladybugs and chrysopids are effective aphids control. In Southeast Asia, public health officials have found that a pair of dragonfly larvae can maintain a reservoir of water without mosquito larvae.
Despite their drawbacks, insects are an integral part of the natural world on which we depend. As Christopher O'Toole points out, insects cannot survive without them if they can survive without us.
For humans, the equivalent would be a skyscraper more than nine kilometers high.
METAMORPHOSIS: a new look, a new lifestyle
Some insects completely renew their appearance through a process called metamorphosis, literally "shape change". The changes can be quite dramatic. Worms turn into flies, caterpillars into butterflies, and water larvae into dragonflies in the air. Hundreds of thousands of insects are subject to metamorphosis.
In order to achieve such a transformation, which is comparable to the transformation of a train into an airplane, major changes must take place in the insect's body. Take the butterfly, for example. While the caterpillar sleeps in the pupa, most of its old tissues and organs are broken and a whole host of new adult organs such as wings, eyes, and antennae are developing.
Transformation usually involves adopting a new lifestyle. For example, in the larval stage the dragonfly catches small fish or tadpoles; but when he becomes a free-flying adult, he changes his diet to insects. It's the equivalent of a man who swims in the ocean for his first 20 years and flies like a bird for the rest of his life.
Could evolution orchestrate these incredible transformations? How could a caterpillar appear on stage programmed to transform into a butterfly? Who was there first, the caterpillar or the butterfly? One cannot exist without the other, because only the butterfly reproduces and lays eggs.