Belostoma sp. is a giant water bug up to 15–17 cm long. These are the largest representatives of the order Hemiptera on the entire planet. Distributed in Eastern and South-East Asia. Has a terrifying appearance.
Body oval shape, elongated, black, yellow-brown or Brown, covered with small hairs. Coloring allows you to camouflage yourself with surrounding objects. The front legs are strongly curved, with hooks at the ends resembling claws, they allow them to capture and hold prey. The eyes are large and reticulated. The wings are membranous, transparent and smoky in color.
Giant Belostoma bug
Belostoma lives in tropical and subtropical regions of the planet. In some warm countries local residents They're called "Alligator Ticks." Two species are found on Far East. Lives in shallow reservoirs, both flowing and standing, rich in vegetation. Spends most of its life under water, breathes atmospheric air, for which reason it sometimes floats to the surface. The openings of both respiratory tubes of these bugs are located at the end of the abdomen. Therefore, in order to take a breath, he needs to stick the back of his body out of the water. The bug swims well, its hind legs act as oars.
Giant belostomas spread to other bodies of water by air. Sometimes in the dark they can be attracted to lighting fixtures, which is why the insects received the nickname “electric-light bugs.” electric light" At this time, a belostoma can easily hit a random passerby in the face.
Giant bedbugs have a peculiar reaction to impending danger. If a belostoma encounters an enemy larger than itself, it freezes, pretending to be dead. In another case, the insect may release an odorous liquid from the openings of the glands at the end of the abdomen.
It is common for Far Eastern white stomas to leave for the winter. With the onset of cold weather, they leave their ponds and find shelter in the crevices of dry stumps and fallen trees, densely overgrown with moss and lichen. In such a shelter, they fall into a state of suspended animation in order to survive the shortage of heat and food. Wintering ends with the establishment of a constant warm temperature, ensuring sufficient heating of water in reservoirs. Immediately after leaving their hiding places, belostomas actively feed in order to renew their deficiency. nutrients lost in winter.
Giant Belostoma bug
Belost lifestyle
Belostomas are carnivorous predators; they hunt by waiting for prey in a shelter. They feed on fish fry, amphibians, tadpoles, aquatic insects, and fish. The insect pierces the body of the victim with a sharp proboscis, introduces a digestive enzyme into the tissue, then the bug sucks up the resulting mass. These predatory bugs prey even on well-protected armored animals, looking for unprotected places on their bodies. Thus, Belostomas became the cause of mass death of three-keeled turtles in Japan.
Important! Belost bites are not dangerous for humans, but if the enzyme contained in the saliva gets on the skin, it will cause discomfort. While swimming, these insects can bite people's toes and heels. A wound will form at the site of the bite, which will take a long time to heal.
Pictured are Belostoma bugs and their victims
Reproduction
The period of mating and egg laying occurs in the spring. One oviposition contains up to 100 eggs laid in different time. One female lays up to 4 eggs at a time, so the bugs mate several times until the required number of eggs is laid.
Belostomas are classified as insects with an incomplete type of transformation. That is, throughout their life they go through only two stages of development: the larva and the imago (adult insect). The beginning of the larval stage is considered to be the exit from the egg. Newborn larvae lack normal coloring and their body coverings are soft. The integument of the larvae gradually hardens and becomes colored, after which they enter the phase enhanced nutrition. The stage of increased growth is accompanied by several molts, when the larva sheds the chitinous cover that has become cramped for it. This is how the body enlarges and transforms into an adult form.
Victim of the belostoma bug
Caring for offspring
Some Belostomas have a pronounced concern for their offspring. Fertilized females lay eggs on the backs of males.
The male carries the eggs for about two weeks. At the same time, it does not sink to the very bottom of the reservoir, but stays closer to the surface and, with the help of its hind legs, ensures water circulation because future offspring need access to air.
The male carries the eggs until the larvae hatch. During this period, he begins to eat less because... oviposition on the back limits its movement. Such insects become easy prey for predators. Therefore, by the end of the breeding season in reservoirs, the number of females exceeds the number of males.
In Japan, the belost is highly revered, knowing the ability of their males to take such careful care of their future offspring. It is this feature that has made the white bug a unique symbol of a father who does not abandon his child under any circumstances.
Male Great Belostoma bearing offspring
Male Great Water Belostoma with hatched larvae
The role of belostoma in nature
The Belostoma water bug, being a predator, participates in the processes of regulating the number of other animals, including harmful ones. For example, in Japan it was noted mass death three-keeled turtles that damage rice crops. A zoologist from Kyoto University managed to record the fact that a giant belostoma hunted a three-keeled turtle. This event significantly reduced the impact of pests on crops.
However, whitestomas can cause harm by eating the fry of rare or commercial fish. This could result in losses for fisheries.
Interesting! In some exotic countries large Belostoma waterbugs are a specialty national dish, which you can buy and try right on the street. For this reason, Thailand has seen a decline in the number of these insects.
Very cheap dish in Thailand! It tastes like chicken, I recommend it to everyone!
Vladimir, Moscow
Fried belostomy as a dish of exotic cuisine
Video: Belostoma bug eats a snail
Good to know:
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Water bugs are inhabitants of quiet bodies of water with standing or slowly flowing water. They live all over the world. Predators hunt weaker insects with which they live next to. Some fly well, others only swim and crawl. All have a chitinous cover.
Why are they needed?
Water bugs regulate the prevalence of individual small insects. Most inhabitants of mid-latitudes hunt mosquito larvae, reducing their population. Aquatic “hunters” are most active in the summer, spending most time in water.
They reproduce by eggs, which become larvae, then nymphs (young individuals), and adult insects. During the summer season, their population increases hundreds of times. Water bugs are prey for larger individuals, birds, and fish. Some spend the winter falling into suspended animation.
All aquatic representatives are considered safe for humans and do not attack. If disturbed, they may bite. The bite of any bug is painful; it’s not for nothing that some of their species are called “water wasps.” The bite is accompanied by the introduction of protein structures - digestive enzymes. For this reason, the wound on the skin where the bite was taken does not heal for a long time.
Such different quantities, behavior
Water bugs range in size from a few millimeters to 15-17 cm. The largest individuals of water bugs live in tropical conditions. There are several types of them:
- water striders;
- smoothysh (smooth bug);
- rowers;
- giant (belostoma).
Let's consider the behavior of these representatives.
The water strider is a bug with about 700 representatives different sizes, forms. It looks like a wingless dragonfly, a little more than a centimeter in size, which has mastered the expanse of water. Some water striders can fly and move to find new habitats and wintering grounds. They feed on small larvae of other insects; they themselves can be victims of larger bugs and birds. The largest representatives of water striders live in the tropics, their bite is noticeable, and there is a danger of an allergic reaction to the bite.
The smoothie bug lives up to its interesting name appearance. It has a smooth body surface. It’s even more interesting to watch when the smooth bug is hunting. It turns over on its back in the water and watches its prey at the surface of the reservoir. It attacks larvae, curious fry, darting around the very surface of the water. It bites its victim, sucks out its entrails; the bite is not dangerous for humans.
It can live not only in bodies of water, among which it prefers ponds and lakes. Gladysh can be found in a garden barrel next to a person. With the help of the proboscis and limbs it produces interesting sounds, similar to the chirping of a grasshopper. It is believed that the smoothie is safe, but if you take it with your hands, it will bite painfully. It’s not for nothing that they call it the “water bee.” The danger of a bite is the possibility of developing allergies and suppuration of the wound.
The greblyak is a water bug, similar to the smooth one, but swims with its back up. The rower moves much more energetically due to its long legs, which it swings like oars. The paddlefish can fly and likes to change hunting sites in the dark.
The peculiarity of the behavior is that it can often be seen near a human dwelling; the paddlefish flies towards the light. While hunting in water, the paddlefish replenishes its supply of oxygen through a breathing tube located in the front of the body. This distinguishes it from the smoothie, which “breathes” through a tube in the tail of the body. The comb attacks larvae and fry of fish, itself measuring up to 17 mm.
Its bite is accompanied by the injection of enzymes into the larva, which it firmly holds with its front paws. Like all water bugs, the paddlefish feeds on the digested contents of its prey. The paddlefish itself is a frequent prey for birds, its larger relatives. The danger to humans is similar to smoothie.
A giant water bug of a terrifying name and species. The largest insect in the world, reaches a length of 15-17 cm. Most representatives of this species are inhabitants northern regions Africa, South America. There are subspecies living in the Far East that spend the winter on stumps and animal burrows, hibernating.
He needs much more food than his other “brothers”. It attacks living creatures around it and can fly. The victims of such a giant are large inhabitants of reservoirs:
- frogs;
- lizards;
- turtles.
Its behavior is interesting because it emits an unpleasant odor. Having noticed a person, he freezes and does not move. May bite if handled. Selects bite sites on fingers and toes. Wounds after bites do not heal for a long time, are very painful, and are dangerous due to suppuration.
One can note the unusual attitude towards the offspring of this giant. The female lays eggs on the male's back successively for almost a month. “Dad” carries the precious cargo for two weeks, resembling a hedgehog in appearance, and takes care of the offspring. Among the Japanese, the white bug is a symbol of fatherly love.
Water bugs are a heterogeneous group of insects in size and behavior. They live close to humans. The danger of these insects is limited to bites, causing allergies, suppuration of wounds.
Two planets similar to earthly size, which orbit one another, may exist near distant stars, say researchers. Most of the planets in our system have their own satellites. Our neighbors such as Saturn and Jupiter, for example, have more than seventy satellites. Despite this, these satellites are usually much smaller than their planets - the Earth is almost four times larger than its satellite and more than eighty times heavier. However, there are also satellites whose dimensions are comparable to the sizes of other planets. For example, Ganymede, the most large satellite Jupiter is larger than Mercury and is three-quarters the diameter of Mars. In addition, in our home system there are satellites comparable in size to the size of their own planets. Pluto's largest moon, Charon, is about half the diameter of its dwarf host. As a result, quite interest Ask, can there be planets of the same size in the universe that would revolve around each other?
Binary stars are stars rotating near each other, a fairly common phenomenon in our Milky Way. Most of these binary systems are even known to have exoplanets, which can be called worlds with two suns. Double asteroids are also known in our solar system. Nevertheless, the existence of double planets, the sizes of which could be compared with those of Earth, is currently found only in fantastic assumptions. One of possible ways the formation of double planets may be the case when two planets orbiting a star at a certain moment in their existence came close to a distance sufficient for their gravitational interaction. To make sure that such systems are possible, researchers, using computer program, simulated two rocky objects, the size of the Earth, located at a small distance by cosmic standards. In their work, the researchers changed the mass, speed and approach trajectories of the planets. As a result, scientists created about two dozen models.
Despite this, these models often led to a collision of planets, as a result of which they connected and turned into one larger planet. Sometimes after a collision near new planet a disk was formed from materials thrown into orbit from which the satellite was then formed. Models were also obtained in which the planets, after a sliding collision at high speed, received minor damage and simply flew away. opposite sides, and sometimes were even thrown out of their star system. Nevertheless, in approximately one third of all models it was possible to obtain double planets. In these models, the planets approached rather slowly and avoided collisions. These binary planets orbit quite close to each other, they are only about half the diameter of the planets apart. Over time, the speed of rotation around its axis of both planets becomes equal. As a result of this “alignment”, the planets always look at each other with the same side. dual systems could exist for many billions of years, the researchers say, if they are located at a distance of at least 0.4 AU. from its star, since at such a distance the star’s gravity will not be able to disrupt their interaction.
Double planet- this is the Earth with the Moon. They have the right to this name because our satellite stands out sharply among the satellites of other planets due to its significant size and mass in relation to its central planet. Available in solar system satellites absolutely larger and heavier, but compared to its central planet they are much smaller than our Moon in relation to the Earth. In fact, the diameter of our Moon is more than a quarter of the Earth’s, and the diameter relative to the largest satellite of other planets is only a 10th of the diameter of its planet (Triton is a satellite of Neptune). Further, the Moon's mass is 1/81 that of the Earth; Meanwhile, the heaviest of the satellites that exists in the solar system, the III satellite of Jupiter, is less than 10,000th of the mass of its central planet.
What fraction of the mass of the central planet is the mass large satellites The sign below shows. You can see from this comparison that our Moon, by its mass, makes up the largest fraction of its central planet.
The third thing that gives the Earth-Moon system the right to claim the name “double planet” is the close proximity of both celestial bodies. Many satellites of other planets circle at much long distances: some of Jupiter's moons (for example, the ninth, Fig. 36) circle 65 times further.
Rice. 36.
In connection with this is the curious fact that the path described by the Moon around the Sun differs very little from the path of the Earth. This will seem incredible if you remember that the Moon moves around the Earth at a distance of almost 400,000 km. Let us not forget, however, that while the Moon makes one revolution around the Earth, the Earth itself manages to move along with it approximately the 13th part of its annual path, i.e. 70,000,000 km. Imagine the circular path of the Moon - 2,500,000 km - stretched along a distance 30 times greater. What will remain of its circular shape? Nothing. That is why the path of the Moon near the Sun almost merges with the Earth’s orbit, deviating from it only by 13 barely noticeable protrusions. It can be proven with a simple calculation (which we will not burden the exposition here) that the path of the Moon is everywhere directed towards its Sun concavity. Roughly speaking, it looks like a convex thirteen-sided triangle with softly rounded corners.
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Her companion |
(in fractions of the planet's mass) |
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In Fig. 37 you see an accurate depiction of the paths of the Earth and Moon over the course of one month. The dotted line is the path of the Earth, the solid line is the path of the Moon. They are so close to each other that to depict them separately we had to take a very large drawing scale: the diameter of the earth’s orbit here is 1/2 m. If we took 10 cm for it, then the greatest distance in the drawing between both paths would be less than the thickness of the depicted their lines. Looking at this drawing, you are clearly convinced that the Earth and the Moon move around the Sun almost along the same path and that the name double planet was assigned to them by astronomers quite rightly.
Rice. 37.
So, to an observer placed on the Sun, the Moon's path would appear to be a slightly wavy line, almost coinciding with the Earth's orbit. This does not at all contradict the fact that in relation to the Earth the Moon moves along a small ellipse.
The reason, of course, is that, looking from the Earth, we do not notice the portable movement of the Moon along with the Earth. earth's orbit, because we ourselves participate in it.
- Carefully examining the drawing, you can see that the movement of the Moon is not depicted as strictly uniform. This is actually true. The Moon moves around the Earth in an ellipse, the focus of which is the Earth, and therefore, according to Kepler’s second law, it runs faster in areas close to the Earth than in areas farther away. Eccentricity lunar orbit Quite large: 0.055.