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- Wood bug
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- Wood bug
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- Wood bug
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- Tree bug eggs
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- Aerosol Clean House
The tree bug belongs to the family of real protectors, which includes more than 3990 species. This is quite a lot when you consider that about 40 thousand are described types of bugs. Tree shields have about 180 species, the most prominent representatives are the green and gray bugs, as well as berry shields. A feature of the insects of this family is the upper chitin shell in the form of a shield, because of which the representatives of this family got their name. What a tree bug looks like and what it eats, we will consider below.
The appearance and structure of the insect
The green tree bug has a flattened in the upper-lower direction body, divided into five segments. The upper part is divided into:
- a triangular head;
- prothorax with sharp triangular protrusions;
- visor
- two pairs of dense elytra;
- webbed wings.
From the lower, abdominal part, the body is divided into six segments at the edges, which open the spiracles. Between the second and third pairs of legs there are glands that secrete substances that emit a specific odor, due to which shields are called stink bugs. The aroma not only lures the partner, but also protects insects from predators. The edges of the chitinous cover of the abdominal segments protrude, forming when looking at the insect from above, a relief frame.
Interesting!
The smell that wood bugs emit is much stronger than the aroma of other representatives of the species. With its help, insects communicate, “mark” food places, informing relatives about the availability of food, “call” a sexual partner and warn of danger. The glands secrete a secret, not only with a pungent odor, but also poisonous to other insects and birds. The main component of the secret is cimicinic acid - contact poison for small insects.
The mouth apparatus of the piercing-sucking type is represented by a pointed proboscis. What green bugs eat depends on the availability of food resources near their habitats. They can be either “vegetarians” or carnivores. With the help of a proboscis, a garden green bug pierces the skin of leaves, berries or a blade of grass and sucks the juice.
Of garden crops, he prefers raspberries, but does not disdain other shrubs. Damages cereals - stems and grains. But berry bug can feed on dead insects, sucking their contents. The insect injects digestive enzymes into the food object, which contain symbiont bacteria, which ensure the digestion of food. The secretion of the salivary glands changes the viscosity of vegetable juice and facilitates absorption.
The answer to the question whether green bugs bite is not completely clear. A few evidence of the bites of these insects make one doubt whether these individuals were mutants that crossed with predators or bed bugs. The soft proboscis of the green shield cannot pierce the human skin, so rumors of bites are doubtful.
Interesting!
Forest bugs have a thicker proboscis than green tree shields. They pierce them with the covers of caterpillars and insects that do not have a chitinous cover, sucking them out.Wood shields can “bite” if stepped on or crushed.
Two complex eyes are located on the head, and two simple eyes are closer to the base of the flap. The long antennae consist of 4 segments.
A photo of a tree bug gives an idea of its appearance. The photo shows a bright green color of the insect. This is a summer outfit. With the onset of autumn, brown spots appear on the chitinous cover, which merge with the approach of cold weather. Thanks to such a protective disguise, the bug does not catch the eye on the fallen autumn foliage, in which it hibernates.
Adult insects hibernate close to food objects. Green tree bugs hide for the winter in the litter of fallen leaves, under small pebbles. Forest shield hides under the bark of a tree. They are immersed in a state of obligate diapause, and not just numb.
With the onset of spring, insects actively begin to search for food supply, flying to gardens and deciduous forests.
Reproduction and cycles of transformation of the shield bug
In the mating season, a male wood bug revolves around the female, gently touching her mustache and head. Fertilizing the female, the male bug introduces the genitals into the hole on the dorsal part of the abdomen. The seminal fluid injected into the “vault” fertilizes the eggs as needed.
In a favorable climate, the female can lay eggs twice during a warm period of time. In one clutch there are up to 100 rounded eggs of light green color, tightly adjacent to each other. Their green wood bug sticks to the bottom of the leaf. The eggs have a lid at the top, which facilitates the exit of larvae. From the beginning of masonry to the release of larvae, about 15 days pass.
In the photo, larvae of the first generation that have just left eggs are visible, whose body is brown in color. Larvae, like all insects with incomplete transformation, almost do not differ in appearance from adults, except for wings. Hatching, young individuals immediately begin to feed.
The larvae of the wood insect pass 4-5 molts and change the color of the chitin cover from brown to green. The entire cycle of conversion from an egg to an adult insect takes 1.5 months.
Interesting!
Traditional medicine uses green wood bug bugs to protect alcoholism. To this end, prepare vodka tincture on the "stinks". The taste of alcohol does not change, but dissolved bioactive substances cause a gag reflex, which should turn the drunkard away from alcohol. It is enough to catch 2-3 shield bugs and fill them with a glass of vodka so that in 4-5 days the “medicine” is ready.
Toward the end of the transformation, the larvae have thin wings with unexpressed venation. Insects rarely use them, although they can travel considerable distances in search of food. Woody green shield does not cause significant damage to gardens. Only in the case of a significant increase in the population, it can damage the raspberries, giving them a characteristic smell. Brown spots remain at the puncture site on young leaves and shoots, which prevents their further growth.
Green bug bug in the apartment and methods of dealing with it
Green bugs in the apartment are rare guests. There they lack the usual food and they can fly by accident: during the breeding season, exploring new territories or with a sharp change in weather conditions. Through windows unprotected by the net, the bug bug gets into the house from the garden and the only harm from it is an unpleasant smell.
If the invasion of insects causes discomfort, then you need to know how to get rid of tree bugs in the apartment. For this, several methods of controlling insects are used:
- Mechanical - shields can simply be assembled, trying not to crush them, to avoid a pungent smell. Tighten window openings with a net. Through it, the guards will not be able to get into the apartment.
- Chemical - use aerosol insecticides Clean House, Raid and others, which you can freely buy in Moscow and other cities.But the use of chemicals is necessary with severe damage to berry crops garden bugs, in the apartment this is not necessary.
Aerosol Clean House - For the treatment of the garden and the garden from the wood shield, folk remedies are used - a decoction of onion husks, a solution of mustard powder, red pepper infusion, a black cohosh broth.
- If you plant strong-smelling plants around the house - tansy, lavender, cloves, mint or tsimifugu (black cohosh), then the tree shields will leave the garden and will cease to fly into housing.
Since the woody shield does not pose a threat to humans or crops, a systematic fight against it is not conducted.
Stink bugs often appear in the garden. Quite a bit, but it’s unpleasant when, along with juicy raspberries, such a “miracle” gets into the bucket. We have to sort out the crop, so as not to cook in jam. And the children love to look at them. They are like knights in armor. I met them in the forest when I picked berries.
A lot of green flat bugs with an unpleasant odor appeared on grandmother's shrubs last year. My father and I already wanted to spray the bushes with a parasite preparation, but my grandmother boiled some herbs and we processed the berries with this. The smell of the decoction was not much nicer than that of the bugs, but they quickly disappeared.
Since childhood, I remember how, with girlfriends, bugs of bugs were collected on the garden plot. We went from one bush and a tree to another, and when we found a bug, we threw it in a bucket of kerosene, and then our father burned them. In some years there were many bugs, in others fewer. We also turned over the leaves in search of egg clutches and when we found them, they tore off the whole leaf and threw it into a bucket.
And in our autumn, all the leaves were raked and burned, so that the shield insects would not fly apart in the spring. In our area, even compost pits have never been made, because there were many green bugs.
Once, when I was a child, I ate a little bug with a raspberry. Now I know that this is the larva of the woodbug, but the taste was so ugly that since then I have not eaten raspberries, even bought one.
Once it was a very hot summer, forests often lit up nearby, and all living creatures ran away from the fire. Then so many different insects flew into our apartment! Among them, there were many different shield bugs - berry, wood, green. They were of all colors - from a nondescript dusty brown to bright, like painted toys. They flew in and immediately plopped to the floor, it was so hard for them to fly.
We had such an invasion in a very cold summer. Beetles just flew into a warm room, even scratched their paws on mosquito nets.
I do not like bugs no less than mice. But it was interesting to read about them.
I read how tropical shield guards protect their masonry, covering them with their bodies and bringing berries to the kids. It seems like such a brainless creature, and the maternal instinct is stronger than that of human females. They cannot be called otherwise. These little creatures are real mothers.
I did not know about such an original cure for alcoholism. You will need to try to wean your husband from drinking. In the spring in our country house you can often find green shields, so until the fall there will be no shortage in the raw materials for tincture.
I live in the south, we have these bugs very often fly to the balcony and the windows in the summer and autumn. It never occurred to them to kill. They are easily caught. I always take them outside or let them fly out of the window. The comments above struck. If only to kill everyone, what kind of people ... (((