Mole cricket (earth dog) is a good player in the "pentathlon"

Among insects, it can be said that it is the only insect that can run, swim, fly, dig and sing all at once like a mole cricket. Although it is not good at everything and cannot win a single championship, it can still be called a "five-item champion". An all-rounder.

(1) Mole crickets can be mentioned in sea, land and air. Anyone who has lived in rural areas is no stranger to them. During the rice-planting season, when the fields are filled with water, the homes of the mole crickets are often washed away, so they come out of their burrows to escape. Some are swimming on the water, and some are running fast on the field ridges. At night, they fly towards the lights one after another. They are really all-round athletes who can swim, run and fly in the "sea, land and air".

(2) Efficient burrowing machine Speaking of the amazing digging of mole crickets, there is another legend. A long time ago, there was an emperor who imposed excessive taxes and oppressed the people. The people were squeezed by him to the point where they could no longer live, so they united to rebel. They picked up hoes and poles and rushed into the palace. After hearing the news, the emperor fled through the back door. The shouts of the chasing crowd were loud, and when the panicked emperor had nowhere to hide, he saw a soil hole dug by a cricket on the side of the road, so he dived into it and escaped this "catastrophe"; later, the emperor In return for saving his life, he gave the mole cricket a ridge on the edge of the field and let it eat the seedlings in the air as it pleased. Although the story is fictional, the powerful ability of mole crickets to dig holes is absolutely true.

The mole cricket's special ability to dig holes comes from the pair of thick and large front legs growing on its chest, which have a row of large nail teeth, much like a rake specially used for digging holes.

When the mole cricket digs a hole, it first uses its front feet to loosen the soil. Then its pointed head relies on the thrust of its middle and hind feet to drill in. Its hard and broad chest squeezes the excavated soil into the hole. All around. Just like this, digging, drilling, and pressing, tunnels were formed. It can be said that "hard work pays off."

The tunnels dug by mole crickets in the ground can be as shallow as six or seven centimeters and as deep as 150 centimeters, and can be 200 to 300 centimeters long in one night. Often from one end of the ground to the other, a criss-crossing underground transportation network is formed, with holes within holes and holes connected, like a network of tunnels. In the middle of the passage, the unattractive mole cricket also built an egg-laying room, a nursery, and a granary. With such a home, they can live a happy and long winter comfortably in the warm and moist underground. How great it would be if we could imitate the structure and movement function of the mole cricket's front legs and build a high-power digging machine to dig underground tunnels and benefit mankind!

(3) If you are not a good singer, do you know that mole crickets can still cry! However, even if it imitates crickets and katydids to "move its wings and sing" and make a dull "cuckoo" sound underground, the result is far from elegant. Hearing this indecent sound, some people mistakenly thought it was an earthworm making a sound. In fact, earthworms have no sound function at all. The cry of the mole cricket is purely a courtship signal from the male to lure the female to meet him.

(4) Harm of mole crickets In addition to digging holes in the soil and causing loss of paddy fields, the biggest harm caused by mole crickets is destroying plant growth. Because of its diverse feeding habits, it likes to eat the roots and stems of all plants in crop fields, such as soybeans, wheat, corn, sorghum, millet, tobacco, cotton, vegetables, etc., so it is a major agricultural pest and is an underground pest. among the list. Molecules belong to the order Orthoptera and the family Molecidae, and are commonly known as "earth dogs" and "lala crickets." Usually one generation per year, the female lays 85 eggs at a time, and about 200 eggs are laid annually. After laying eggs, the female does not leave and takes on the responsibility of protecting the eggs and nurturing the nymphs until her children live independently. Mole crickets live underground all year round and only crawl to the surface in the evening and early morning. When the sun rises, they go underground again.

The last thing I want to say is that native dog is a traditional Chinese medicine. For details, please see the "Cure Diseases and Save People" section. For its special parenting habits, please refer to the "Parenting with Mother and Child Affection" section.

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