Insects are just like people - they are also divided into insects and beetles (41 photos)

Do you know how long a ladybug's orgasm lasts? In a new collection we will tell you about our favorite insects. This time, magnificent and harsh, colorful and amazing, warlike and fragile beetles, bugs and bugs.

There are about 400 thousand known species of beetles. Every fourth of all animals is a beetle.

Insects are divided into 32 orders, of which the most numerous are beetles (Coleoptera), belonging to 125 families, including 500,000 species.

Beetles. A lot of them. So many. A lot. By the way, do you know that scientists have calculated that 80% of the Earth’s biomass is insects. Those. All of us, animals, birds, fish and others, except insects, make up only 20%. The rest they...

Almost 40% of all insects living on the planet belong to the order of beetles.

They can be tiny

Very beautiful

Beetles, like many other insects, are an essential part of any ecosystem. Due to the fact that they feed on the waste products of other plants and animals, they are a kind of nature's scavengers.

The dung beetle (Geоtrupes) is capable of moving 90 times its mass.

And very scary

60% of the total beetle diversity is made up of representatives of just five families: weevils (Curculionidae) - 60,000 species, predator beetles (Staphylinidae) - 45,000, ground beetles (Carabidae) - 40,000, leaf beetles (Chrysomelidae) - 35,000, and longhorned beetles (Cerambycidae) - 26,000.

There are more than 4,000 species of ladybugs alone

Ladybugs mate every day for nine hours a day. Orgasm for representatives of both sexes lasts ninety minutes and can occur one after the other three times in a row. In the intervals between reproduction, insects have to continuously feed.

Individuals of the Australian Zeus river bug (Phoreticovelia disparata) are also characterized by an insatiable sexual appetite. The mating process lasts for 4 days.

And the famous Colorado? It comes in different colors, not just those we are used to seeing.

Bright and funny, amazing and amazing - that's all of them

Beetles develop with complete metamorphosis. In their development, each of them goes through four successive stages (egg - larva - pupa - adult).

Coleoptera (Coleoptera) is an order of insects. In beetles, the front wings, or elytra, are very strong and rigid; they cover the upper soft side of the abdomen and the membranous wings of the second pair located here. It is these membranous wings of the second pair that are used for flight. They are much longer than the elytra and in a calm state are folded and hidden under them.

To defend themselves from enemies, some beetles “shoot” a caustic liquid, which quickly evaporates in the air and scares off the pursuer.

In bombardier beetles, this liquid contains nitrate salts and nitrogen oxide, and the entire mixture explodes when it comes into contact with air.

The world's largest beetle is a rare insect from South America, the titan woodcutter Titanus giganteus (L.); beetles up to 22 cm in length are found, excluding antennae.

The branch of entomology that studies Coleoptera is called coleopterology.

The smallest, such as the beetles (family Ptiliidae), do not exceed 0.2 mm, which is not much larger than the slipper ciliates. Many beetles have a body length of less than 1 mm. Among them, the record belongs to the North American feather wing Nanosella fungi.

The most insatiable of all beetles are ground beetles - even if the beetle is full and has just eaten, at the sight of a potential victim it will still rush to attack and immediately eat the prey.

The Melanophila acuminate beetle needs a forest fire to reproduce. When it finds burnt wood, it lays eggs there. The advantage of this method is that at this moment his natural enemies cannot interfere with him, since they themselves are fleeing from the fire.

There are no Colorado potato beetles in the Far East, but their niche in human gardens is occupied by the potato ladybug (28-spotted, or epilahna).

The legs of weevil beetles are attached to the body using a screw connection: the leg resembles a screw, and the joint resembles a nut. When the muscles on the insect's limb tighten, the screw "turns." This attachment provides the beetle with greater flexibility - its front legs can rotate 90°, and its hind legs 130°.

The larvae of small leaf beetles, iris beetles (Donacia), living in water, obtain air by inserting their “breathing spines” into the roots of underwater plants and drawing air from the intercellular space.

In the Middle Ages, there was a belief that the stag beetle had healing properties. It was believed (completely erroneously, of course) that a decoction obtained by boiling beetles in water could cure children of the habit of wetting the bed.

Weevils (or elephant weevils) are considered pests because... they pierce wood with their noses and lay eggs in the holes)