Types of beetles: description and photo

In this article we want to talk about beetles. Sometimes in a metropolis we simply do not notice them. But this group of insects is quite numerous and deserves attention. Let's look at some of the beetles that are most characteristic of our latitudes.

The variety of beetles

The first beetles appeared on our Earth more than three hundred million years ago. These living creatures constitute the largest group of insects. Imagine that the detachment consists of more than 350,000 different species.

Sixty percent of the beetles are representatives of only five families:

1. Beetles predators - 45 000.
2. Beetles - 40 000.
3. Beetles-weevils - 60 000.
4. Mustaches - 26 000.
5. Flyers - 35 000.

Insects have a wide range of habitats around the world, sometimes even in our homes and apartments. In this article we want to consider some species of beetles.

May Beetles

May beetles are quite common in our latitudes. Their appearance falls on the spring period - most often in late April. What kind of May beetles are known? In general, the entire genus is represented by 24 species, nine of them live in the territory of Russia. It is believed that bugs appear with the buds blossoming on oaks and the appearance of leaves on birches. If you look at the soil in warm spring days, you can see May beetles creeping out after wintering. In the evenings, near the flowering green trees, the buzzing of insects is audible. These are May beetles. In the daytime on plants they can not be noticed, they sit on leaves, clinging to their legs. I must say that all kinds of May beetles harm shrubs and trees, eating their greens and flowers.

Appearance of the May beetle

The body of the May beetle reaches 2-3.5 centimeters long. It is covered with a chitinous shell that protects the internal organs. We are used to the fact that the insect has a light brown hue. But in nature, different types of beetles (photos are given in the article) can have different colors, from reddish-brown to black. The shades depend on the habitat of insects. Brown color is characteristic for those individuals that live in open sunny places, and black cover has residents of shaded places, such as forests. Beetles live in Asia and Europe, preferring forest-steppe with young pines. But it is quite good to master and in the city, in artificial plantations of fruit trees.

Unique insect abilities

May beetles fly at a speed of three meters per second - not bad enough for a small creature. With good weather conditions, they cover up to twenty kilometers per day. The height of the insect's flight ranges from six to 100 meters. The goal of flying all varieties of the May beetle is always green plantations. The eastern insect prefers the nearest forest or tall trees. And the western May beetles are guided during the flight to the highest objects in the distance, as a rule, these are forests.

The peculiarity of these unique insects is the ability to find the right way. Studying the habits of the beetle, biologists caught them and moved to a completely different place, releasing a couple of days later. Whatever it seemed incredible, but the insects took the former course, as if they were programmed to fly in a certain direction.

It is still unknown how the beetles are guided. On the one hand, they determine the direction of the sun, but on the other - they fly fine and in the evening, when it is not. Apparently, they have enough polarized light to understand where to go. Biologists even suggest that May beetles are able to remember the neighborhood, focusing on the most prominent subjects.

Bark beetles

Who are bark beetles? The species of these insects are very diverse. They all live in vast areas, causing significant damage to plants, both growing and chopped down. All these types of beetles are pests. These include:

1. Dendrocton, or beetle spruce.
2. Beetle bark beetle (furniture or house).
3. Zabolonnik birch.
4. Shashel.
5. Oak large black barbel.
6. Beetle xylophagus.
7. Beetle typographer. In the people it is called a bug beetle.
8. A beetle bug or a house bark beetle (woodcutter).

Woodpecker beetles

All species of this insect are distributed not only in forests, but also in all places where there are accumulations of wood. They calmly appear in wooden houses, warehouses, cottages and even in wooden furniture. Since childhood, we know another name for an insect - a beetle, or a grinder.

Different kinds of beetles can pose a lot of trouble to the inhabitants of the house. As a rule, when building a house or giving, wooden elements are not always treated with protective means. If after a while you notice something is wrong, or the creaking of the floorboards appeared, just know that you have uninvited guests - beetle bugs. All kinds of domestic pests are subject to immediate destruction, as they will not leave you, but during their stay they will spoil many wooden things, including floors, frames, floors.

Woodpeckers have a characteristic feature of laying their larvae not in living wood, but in spilas. The beetle is very small - just a few millimeters. Almost all the time he is in the wood, where his life goes, and prefers a dry old tree. I must say that the main harm is caused not just by beetles, but by their larvae. After all, they make passages in the boards, turning them almost to dust. It is difficult to imagine, but the larvae live from five to twenty years old, gnawing through miles of strokes. The woodcarver himself is not capable of causing great damage. Beetles multiply rapidly, in the spring the females lay eggs, and in a week there are larvae feeding on a tree.

Methods of fighting with woodcarvers

If you found damage on wooden surfaces, this indicates that a woodworm has penetrated your dwelling. This is the signal to start fighting it. The fact is that for sure you will not immediately notice the uninvited guests, and when their presence becomes obvious, the colony reaches a decent size. For struggle use various kinds of persistent insecticides, having different forms (gel, spray, liquid).

Dendrocroton, or spruce beetle

Dendroctons are common species of bark beetles. They can be found in Italy, England, Norway, the countries of the Far East. The most acceptable for them is the taiga region, less often they live in steppe areas. Louboyed knows how to make small flights. But the main way to spread it is to transport contaminated wood.

The color of the beetle depends on its habitat, most often it is brown, black or brown. The body of the insect has an oblong elongated shape. A mustache is like a mace.

The female parasite lays eggs inside the wood, the hatched larvae feed on the entire network of tunnels. Then they grow up and after a while postpone their larvae.

Grinder

Grinders are parasites, like all kinds of bark beetles. The body of the insect is elongated, and the head is hidden in a peculiar hood. Basically it has a brown or brown tinge. The surface of his body is covered with down. The beetle can fly, and then populates significant areas. Mass migrations are performed by insects at the beginning of summer. Pests have their own defense mechanism, which consists in the ability to pretend to be dead.

Insects reproduce very quickly. For the year the females make four clutches. At their modest size, beetles eat a lot.

Zabolonnik birch

All kinds of beetles (photos are given by us in the article) - bark beetles - have an excellent appetite. An exception was not the birch stalker. His favorite delicacy is the old birch. But during the breeding the parasite will not pass by the attention and young trees. If such an insect has settled in a tree, then it will live no more than a few years and die.

The beetle gnaws holes in the wood, which ensure the ventilation of their home and become the place of fertilization of females. The length of the insect does not exceed 6.5 millimeters. On the wings there are specks. Mass beetles fly in early summer. Now they are found all over Europe. What kind of wood do bugs prefer? Different species of birches of all ages become a home for parasites. In addition to the fact that they gnaw out tunnels, bugs still infect trees with fungi. Since their body is covered with villi, they easily spread controversy. The diseased trees gradually lose branches, and then perish.

Shashel

The cachet is of medium size, its body is painted white. In the area of the neck you can see black spots among the white villi. It is difficult to say which species of bark beetles are most dangerous for plants. Moreover, usually more harm is done by larvae than adults. The larva of the shashel makes numerous moves, very quickly the trunk turns into dust. In the tree, it can live up to several years, and then turns into a full-fledged beetle. Shashel has one feature that makes it difficult to detect them. All holes made in the wood remain filled with wood flour. It does not pour out, and therefore it is externally difficult to identify infection with such a parasite.

Black oak beetle-barbel

These beetles are larger than their congeners. A distinctive feature is the mustache of an insect, whose length is much larger than the size of the body. The beet prefers oak wood, fir, spruce and pine. So, most of these insects live in wooded areas. Finding a new tree, the insect first destroys the young twigs, the old can not do it. Most of all, for him fit fallen trees.

Xylophagus and typographer

A special feature of the xylophagus is that its digestive tract contains fungi and bacteria that help to break down the wood. Such a parasite feeds on decaying fallen trees.

As for the bug-typographer, it destroys the forests of Kamchatka, the Far East, Europe, Sakhalin, and Siberia. He prefers trees with a thick enough bark, and the plant must be alive. The insect will never settle on the dead tree. Such beetles in the house are very dangerous. Types of wood are not important for them, if they chose a wooden suburban building. Only one rubbish can survive from such a house in a year. And because of the small size of the beetle is difficult to see, because it is so dangerous.

As we see, all representatives of bark beetles we considered are very dangerous beetles (species and names are listed earlier), which harm not only houses, but also large forest areas.

Black beetles

It is believed that black beetles are most dangerous for human habitation . Species of such insects are familiar to us from childhood: Khrushchaks, bark beetles, cockroaches. Whichever of these parasites settles in the house, it must be urgently disposed of. But for the effectiveness of the struggle it is necessary to determine who our enemy is.

Beetles-hruschaks are quite large: about two centimeters. But their larvae are very small, and therefore they are difficult to detect. They should be found in flour and cereals. These are their favorite places. Such spoiled products must be thrown out, and the shelves treated with potassium permanganate or vinegar.

The house can also appear black cockroaches. Their danger is that they are carriers of viral diseases. If the Khrushchaks and bark beetles perish from insecticides, then they do not act on cockroaches. Therefore, experts recommend using health services.

In order to protect yourself from the appearance of uninvited guests, you can periodically carry out preventive measures that will help keep insects out of the house. To do this, again, use insecticides, which process the back surfaces of cabinets, especially in the kitchen, skirting boards, corners, pantries. Sometimes it is easier to prevent the appearance, rather than later get rid of.

The biggest beetles in the world

Once in childhood, it seemed to us that the May beetles are very large. But in fact, there are much larger insects in the world. Let's look at some species of large beetles.

Titanium is the largest insect (beetle) in the world. Biologists found a specimen seventeen centimeters long, and in the nature there are twenty-centimeter giants. The habitat of such beetles is the Amazon rainforest. Female are larger than males. They dwell inside the trees. At such impressive sizes, the beetles live only five weeks. Titan - just a unique creature that does not even have the closest relatives. It belongs to the family of beetles, they are also called lumberjacks, which are distinguished by their beauty because of their large curved mustache. The price of one such lumberjack beetle comes to five hundred dollars.

Beetle-Hercules and other large insects

Hercules in length reaches sixteen centimeters, while it is not inferior to the famous lumberjack in weight. Sometimes males can be up to nineteen centimeters long, but it should be borne in mind that this figure includes the length of its horn. Hercules are residents of Central and South Africa, found on the islands of the Caribbean Sea. It should be noted that even in prehistoric times there were no beetles more than thirty centimeters. At that time there were giant dragonflies.

The beetle-elephant also belongs to the major insects of the world, although it is inferior in size to the oat and titanium. The average weight of the beetle is 35 grams, the length of the females does not exceed seven centimeters, but the males reach 12 centimeters. Such insects live in Central America, Mexico, in the moist forests of South America. Such an adaptation, like a curved horn, serves as a beetle for overturning an enemy, but not for killing him. It feeds on such a creature with fruits and fruit trees, especially likes bananas. There have been cases when, during harvesting, the insect got into boxes with fruits, and then, having received such a surprise, people were extremely surprised that the insect survived on the road.

In Malaysia, giant long-legged grasshoppers live. Once they were considered the longest insects.

But the Goliath has the status of the most severe beetle in the world. Its weight reaches one hundred grams. The average length of males reaches nine centimeters. Different varieties have different colors, but the main background is always black, and there are numerous white stains on it. Insects lead a daily life, eat ripe fruits and juice of trees. The habitual place of their dwelling is South-Eastern and Central Africa.

In the CIS countries, the repture barbel is the largest beetle. The length of his body is 11.2 centimeters. This rare insect is listed in the Red Book. The beetle is found in the Far East, China, and also on the Korean peninsula.

The deer beetle has its own title. It is the largest in the whole of Europe. It dwells mainly in oak and beech European forests. Its maximum length, recorded by biologists - 8.8 centimeters. His unusual name he got thanks to the jaws, which really look like the horns of a deer. Such an adaptation of an insect is effectively used in the fight against enemies. Females do not have horns, but males are very beautiful because of them.

The insect develops unusually: its larva passes a very long period of 4 to 6 years, and sometimes up to 8. But the beetles themselves live a very short but intense life, which takes place in the struggle for food and females. The process lasts from one to two months. These are unusual beetles.

Types of insects in general are very diverse. They all have their own characteristics - from the smallest pests to the largest giants. It seems that they are so different, but in fact they belong to one big detachment. In many respects, their magnitude depends on the habitat and the amount of food. Even representatives of one species can differ in magnitude.