chemical defenses of insects

When some insects are disturbed or harmed by natural enemies, they release gas or odor to avoid natural enemies, or sting the natural enemies with poisonous needles. Here are a few examples.

fart bug - carabid

Carabid beetles (walking bugs) continuously fire cannonballs from the anus in emergency situations - high-temperature liquid venom produced by the reaction of various chemical substances: hydrogen peroxide, quinone, enzymes, etc., which can beat the crap out of powerful enemies. Perhaps people who love bugs have experienced how powerful it is, so they nicknamed it the fart bug.

The consequences of poking a hornet's nest

As the saying goes: "If you poke a hornet's nest, you will definitely get stung by a bee." Wasp stings are well-deserved. Even some unknown wasps have high self-defense instincts and vigilance. As long as their survival interests are violated, the wasps on guard duty will immediately attack you. Once you are stung by a wasp, you will soon be besieged by a swarm of wasps. This is because when a wasp stings, both the sting and the alarm pheromone remain in the person's skin. The initial reaction of a person after being stung is to swat. The smell of the pheromone is spread into the air with the help of the waving movements when beating the bee. After other wasps smell this smell, they will immediately be in a state of irritation and turmoil, and can quickly and effectively kill the wasp. Organize attacks. Through the extraction and testing of the alarm pheromone released by wasps, it is known that its main component is amyl acetate and has the smell of banana oil. Therefore, once you are stung by a wasp, you can use 5% ammonia or alkaline substances to scrub it, which has the effect of relieving pain and reducing swelling. This is the result of neutralizing the acid and alkali.

Shiquan County, Shaanxi Province is located in the Qinling Mountains. On June 28, 2000, Zhou Chao, an 8-year-old girl from Group 3 of Mingxing Village, Raofeng Town, and her cousin were attacked by mountain bees while hunting pigweed. Zhou Chao was stung. He fell into coma after being hit in the temple and died on the 29th after resuscitation failed. This kind of mountain bee has a black head and a yellow belly and belongs to the wasp family.

Notorious - Stinkbug Elephant

Whether outdoors or on your balcony, you will occasionally see stink bugs flying and falling. If you catch it or touch it with your hands, your hands will be covered with the stinky smell that will last for a long time, so They are often disliked or disliked by people. Because most stink bugs have odor glands that can release odor, they are called "stinky bugs" and "stinky sisters". Accordingly, their "stinky" reputation has spread far and wide. This is a group of insects belonging to the order Hemiptera. The forewings are very special, with a hard base like a beetle wing and a membranous end like a bee wing, hence the name hemi-elytra. Most stink bugs are terrestrial and herbivorous; some species are aquatic; others are external parasites of humans and animals (such as bed bugs). In the insect kingdom, stink bugs can be regarded as a large group with many species and a large number of people. There are more than 38,000 species known in the world. Most of them are flat in shape, and their body colors vary from species to species. Many species are brightly colored and very beautiful. There are more than 3,100 species recorded in China.

The bug elephant has a special ability. When its safety is threatened, it will respond quickly. In a very short period of time, it will eject streams of green smoke from its tail. With the sound of "crackling", it will emit bursts of unpleasant odor, which will make the enemy Harm retreated after hearing the news, while he fled for his life calmly. What's going on? It turns out that it is using its own chemical weapons for self-defense. Its chemical weapons come from its well-developed odor glands. In the larval stage, the opening of the odor gland is located between the dorsal plates of the abdomen, and in the adult stage, it is located on the anterior lateral plate of the metathorax. The main components of this odor are hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide. When these components are oxidized by oxidase in the insect body chamber, benzodione gas is generated and excreted from the body. This is a very short process. In an emergency, Down, firing continuously like a cannon, not only repels the enemy and protects one's own safety, but also "assembly".

Very itchy and spicy

The larvae of the family Erythrididae are oval, or slug-shaped, with thorns and poisonous hairs on their bodies. When touching the skin, they will immediately become red, swollen, and extremely painful. They are commonly known as "itchy spicy caterpillars", "hot spicy caterpillars" or "stinging caterpillars". The middle name is called thorn moth.

I don’t know if you have ever experienced the severe itching. The summer of 2000 was very hot, and the residents of Zhaogongkou Market in Fengtai District, Beijing were fed up with the torture of spicy food. The weather in Beijing in July is extremely hot, and people are too lazy to go out and walk around. However, on the more than 20 large poplar trees around, caterpillars are extremely active. There are more and more caterpillars every day, and they have been bothering the residents living under the trees. them. More than a dozen families under the tree are hiding here and there, but they are still inevitably "bitten" by caterpillars. By July 13th, when the weather was the hottest, there were also the most bugs. The residents who didn’t know what to do had to do it themselves. Some boiled them with boiling water, some used pesticides to kill them, and many of them were killed on just one tree. Ten thousand. But the tree was too tall, and even after a long day of work, only a small part of it was wiped out. It is really distressing to see the big poplar trees being eaten away by insects. There is a one meter square insect array under each tree. Each of these caterpillars is two to three centimeters long, with burrs all over their backs, and their movements are terrifying. There are some daring people who secretly crawl into residents' homes. The residents of the two-row bungalows are coping well, and their doors are closed on hot days. Mr. Zheng, who lived in the innermost room, suffered the most. He lifted up his vest and complained: These caterpillars are really powerful. When he was washing his face under the tree in the morning, he accidentally fell from the tree and several caterpillars got into his vest. At that time, I felt a burning pain in my back. It has been a long time and the swelling has not subsided.  

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