First, a little science - the May beetle, or Khrushchev, is an arthropod insect that belongs to the order Coleoptera, family Lamelidae, subfamily Khrushchev, genus May beetles (lat. Melolontha). The total number of their species is 25. All varieties are large in size, reaching 3.5 cm in length. Distributed throughout Eurasia.
The body is oval in shape, black or brown-brown in color. The strong chitinous shell of the insect is covered with small, but thick and stiff hairs, which can be easily seen in photographs of the cockchafer. Different individuals are covered with hairs to varying degrees. Interestingly, the color can vary depending on the habitat; shades of red are found in lightly shaded areas. In dark places, the color of the cockchafer turns black.
The insect feeds only on food of plant origin. Fruit and ornamental trees and shrubs in gardens, alleys and parks, as well as coniferous plantings, provide excellent nutrition. Larvae living in the ground are very voracious. They happily eat the roots of vegetables, trees, berries and the fruits themselves. This causes enormous damage to gardens and vegetable gardens.
The main distinguishing feature of beetles is the pygidium, a chitinous protrusion at the end of the abdomen, which is an elongated process of a triangular or blunt shape, inclined or vertical. The pygidium of males is well developed; in females it is much less pronounced.
Most species are active at dusk, until midnight. Western cockchafers also fly in the morning hours, before dawn, and at night they are attracted to artificial light sources. May beetles are least active during feeding, and insects feed after midnight or during the day. Often, under trees where beetles gather en masse, you can notice a large number of leaf cores and insect excrement.
The breeding season of cockchafers occurs at the end of May - beginning of June. After mating, the female burrows into the ground and lays 20-30 eggs. Then she feeds intensively again, mates, digs up the soil and makes another clutch. Each female lays eggs 3-4 times, after which she dies. The total number of eggs is 50-60, less often 70 pieces. The depth of the clutch reaches 20-30 cm. The eggs of the cockchafer are gray-white in color, with a diameter of 1.5 to 2.5 mm.
After 30-40 days, the cockchafer larvae hatch from the eggs. The larvae, or furrowworms, have a thick, curved, white body with three pairs of limbs and a large, rounded yellow or brick-colored head. On the head of the larva there are strong and strong mandibles (the upper jaws of the oral apparatus). The body of the cockchafer larvae is covered with sparse hairs. Over the next 3 years, the May beetle larva develops and overwinters in the ground. For wintering, it burrows into the ground to a depth of approximately 1-1.5 meters, and in the spring, around April, it rises higher, into the upper layers of the soil. The first year of its life it feeds on humus and tender roots of herbs, and in the second summer it begins to eat thicker plant roots. During feeding, the larva can crawl up to 30 cm in a day. In autumn (around October), the larva of the cockchafer again migrates to the lower layers of the soil for the next wintering.
The insect spends its last winter in the soil. May beetles fly out of the soil at the end of April - beginning of May, they dig a tunnel in the ground and get out. Eastern chafers fly out of their underground shelter 10-15 days earlier than western ones. Females emerge from the dungeon 7-10 days later than males. During this period, beetles are intensively searching for food, eating leaves, buds, shoots of trees and bushes, thereby causing significant damage to forests and agricultural plantings.
The natural enemies of cockchafers are animals and birds that feed on these insects and their larvae. In forests, these can be vertebrates such as badgers, hedgehogs and moles. In the fields, when loosening the soil and carrying out other agrotechnical activities, the larvae end up on the surface of the ground and, naturally, can be eaten by bats and birds (rooks, starlings, etc.).
Interesting Facts
- An interesting feature of cockchafers is the fact that insects fly contrary to all the laws of aerodynamics: these beetles have too little lift coefficient, and, according to experts, they should not fly at all!
- The cockchafer is an extremely purposeful insect, and it is almost impossible to confuse it. Having set its goal at a certain hill, the beetle will fly in a given direction no matter what. You can catch the beetle and release it in another place, try to disorient it using a chemical or physical method, but once in the wild, the cockchafer will still return to the set course and reach its goal.
- Possessing an exceptional appetite, the May beetle larva of the 3rd year of life is capable of completely destroying the roots of a two-year-old pine tree in a day.
- In Andersen’s world-famous fairy tale “Thumbelina,” the cockchafer is one of the contenders for the hand and heart of the main character.
- The cockchafer is extremely dangerous for North America, where it has no natural enemies. In a few decades, beetle larvae can destroy the entire crop on the mainland.
- The insect can remember the area and the objects that stand out on it. This is similar to the behavior of bees and wasps.
- Blue color “slows down” the activity of the beetle, it freezes. Therefore, in clear weather the insect is inactive.
- In 1479, a trial of the cockchafer case took place in Switzerland. The court ordered the beetles to leave the country. But for some reason the beetles didn’t listen. Bishop Lozansky had to make a fiery speech: “Stupid, unreasonable creatures! There were no cockchafer larvae in Noah’s Ark. In the name of the Most Merciful Lord, I command you to leave all those places where food grows for people and livestock!” And again there was no reaction from the beetles. And the bishop had to make a statement that the beetles were sent by God as punishment for human sins.
- When an insect is calm, does not fly, but sits, it always positions its body in the direction “from north to south” or “from west to east.” Apparently, he has a natural compass hidden inside him.
- May beetles are eaten by cats and dogs with pleasure; for them it is an excellent source of protein.
- Previously, the population of cockchafers was able to be contained (and in some places even exterminated) with the help of pesticides. But since the 1980s, their numbers began to increase again, due to a ban on certain types of agricultural pesticides.
- We tried to fight the beetle and “atomic weapons” - radioactivity. In experiments over 16 days, the Khrushchev received a dose of radiation eight thousand times greater than what is permissible for humans. The branches of the trees on which the insects fed died. The beetles became infertile, but remained quite alive. Moreover, the irradiation even slightly cheered them up: activity increased, mortality decreased, although their appetite remained the same. Thus, this method turned out to be unsuitable for destroying beetles.
- The four to five year development cycle of cockchafers is manifested in the frequency of insect invasions. In summer years, they crawl out of the soil in clouds and literally hang in clusters on the trees. After another 4–5 years of calm, the Khrushchev raids are repeated.
- The only thing he doesn’t eat is ash, and the Western May beetle also refuses lilac.
