If it's to ask which animal class is the most glorious taxa in the world, then I think the title should belong to insects, and so far, the number of insect species that have been discovered has exceeded 1 million, and there may be millions of species waiting to be discovered by humans - about 7,000 new species are discovered every year. However, as new species are constantly discovered, the insect species are also decreasing, disappearing more each year than we find, their habitat. Tropical rainforests, in particular, are increasingly being destroyed.
<h1>Dragonflies and cockroaches
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For centuries, especially in the East, dragonflies have been universally praised for their beautiful appearance. Since the Middle Ages, this beautiful insect has appeared in people's book manuscripts and Flemish floral paintings. The Dutch painted dragonflies on tiles as decoration, while the Japanese used dragonflies as a stamp motif. They also became the subject of many songs and poems. Western folklore, however, tends to think of dragonflies as ominous symbols.
Dragonfly's English name "dragonfly" actually means "dragon in the air", they have extremely high flying skills, super vision and colorful wings, some Dragonflies of the Carboniferous Period, with a wingspan of 75 cm, the largest dragonfly species today, only 1/4 the size of this giant dragonfly.
Fossils of Carboniferous dragonflies unearthed
Form and function
The larvae of dragonflies and dragonflies are aquatic and have a wide range of habitats, ranging from 8 to 18 years old and not exceeding 6.6 cm in length. The larval stage of the lower archaic dragonfly can last for five or six years, but some dragonflies or clams that live in temporary puddles have a larval stage of only 30 to 40 days. For some dragonflies and cockroaches in temperate zones, the larval stage generally lasts for one or two years. For some species in the tropics, the lifespan does not exceed 30 days. Some dragonflies, born in the spring, spend their last larval stage in the winter and hatch from the pupae in the ensuing spring. Dragonflies born in the summer do not enter the last larval stage until after winter, sometimes longer, so they hatch late.
<h1>mantis</h1>
The praying mantis is a carnivorous insect that quietly ambushes its prey for a surprise attack, and its body structure is very suitable for this: large compound eyes, refusal-type mouth organs, a triangular head that can rotate freely at the top of the narrow front chest (the first section of the chest); the appendages of the front chest are armed like a hook by a row of thorns, with a grasping function, like a clip-on-tooth catcher, once the prey is caught, the chance of escape is very slim.
All praying mantises are carnivores and mainly catch other insects, including their own kind. It is common for young mantises to kill each other, they are all lone rangers, and it is possible that those observed cannibalism of them are only partially reliable. For species that guard eggs, female praying mantises do not attack their offspring when they hatch from the eggs. It is unclear whether the mantis mother's carnivorous instincts were completely "cut off" during this period, or whether it was able to distinguish its offspring from other potential prey.
The forethia appendages are often hooked
Camouflage and mimesis
In addition to having sharp vision and powerful offensive weapons, most praying mantises have a stealthy protective color similar to the color of the plant, and with this protective color, they can secretly guard their prey. During the dry season in Africa, many green mantises change their body color to brown depending on their environment. Some mantis species in Africa and Australia sometimes change color very suddenly, such as the frequent forest fires burning the ground black, the local mantis will make their body color very compatible with the surrounding environment (like suffering from black disease) and remain for many days.
The leaves on the back are capable of camouflage
Some species of praying mantises are slightly superior, not only in terms of protective color, they can turn themselves into part of the environment and are active. Some praying mantises can turn themselves into grass-tip or green leaves, and some can even imitate a dead leaf in a subtle way, which is breathtaking. The African and Madagascar ghost mantis in this camouflage, you can hardly distinguish it from a tattered leaf, this is actually its body upside down to wait for the prey posture, many branch-shaped mantises, will extend the forelimbs forward, head down, placed between the two forelimbs, maintaining the shape of a branch; some african mantises, even have a V-shaped notch on the front base node, just enough to put the head in, many tropical mantises can also imitate flowers with considerable fidelity, The nymphs of the African giant-eyed mantis are best at this, and after selecting the flowers to be imitated, they can change their body color for several days, such as pink, yellow or white. If you put them on the stem of a plant, it looks like the flowers that grow from the plant, and if an insect that comes to collect honey is deceived, it is usually a no-go.
Mantis in disguise
<h1>Parasitoids
Most parasitic wasps are also not parasitic, nor carnivorous, and do not want to be truly parasites—they always kill and feed on their hosts in the larval stage. It is not at all like a carnivore that requires only a single host (prey) to complete their entire developmental process, so members of the parasitic department are more precisely called "parasitic bees". Female adults feed on the host, paralyze the host when laying eggs, and use the egg layer to lay eggs in, outside or near the host. After that, it behaves as if it had little to do with its own offspring or host. After hatching, the larvae begin to feed, but the harm is limited at this time, but at the end of development, they begin to eat a large amount of tissue in the host's body, resulting in the death of the host, and finally, the larva pupates inside or outside the host's remains.
Parasitic wasps are paralyzing the host
Parasitic process
Parasitic wasps generally have host specificity. For example, about half of the quasi-parasitic species that attack aphids in the western Paleopic region recognize an aphid, while most of the other half will invade close relatives of the same genus or subfamily, while many other bees and some small bees will attack multiple unrelated hosts in a given environment—small environmental organisms (or niche organisms).
Larvae of adult pupae
<h1>beetle</h1>
Beetles are a general term for Coleoptera insects, with a hard shell on the outside of the body, the forewings are, thick and hard, and the hindwings are membranous, such as scarab beetles, celestial bulls, weevils and so on. Coleoptera insects, more than 350,000 species, making it the largest order in the animal kingdom. The main feature is their special forewing, which has become a hard elytra, covering the flying hindwings. Coleoptera includes some of the largest and smallest insects , and is the most widely distributed insect order.
An insect that existed before the age of the dinosaurs. At that time, the beetles were about 3 to 4 meters long, and it is still a mystery how many years the beetles were born and why they became smaller.
Species characteristics
Beetles, like other insects, have six legs on their heads, thoraxes, and abdomen. Their biggest feature is that the forewings have become hard wing sheaths, which no longer have the function of flying, but only protect the hindwings and body. When flying, first raise the wing sheath, then open the thin hindwing and fly into the air. The color pattern of the wing sheath varies, ranging from golden glows to stripes like tiger stripes, spots like leopard skin, and variegated patterns. Some beetles have their wing sheaths joined together, and the hindwings degenerate and cannot fly anymore, such as walking insects.
toxicity
There are some ladybird larvae with hollow spines that, when broken, produce sticky yellow blood (hemolymphs) that contain bad-tasting chemicals. This substance can also be produced in the "knee joint" of adult worms. This phenomenon is called reflex bleeding, for example, when an ant bites the appendage of a ladybird with its jaw, the hemolymph of the ladybird will stick its antennae and mouthparts together, so the troublesome ant will quickly run away. In beetles, this repellent chemical is widely used and is very effective. For example, some flightless ground beetles spew out formic acid, a substance that burns the skin of enemies and causes severe eye damage.
The venom from the squeezed Cryptoptera, if accidentally smeared on the cornea, can cause some larvae of the genus "Nairobi Eye Disease" that are so toxic that the indigenous people of the Kalahari Desert use their venom to smear hunting arrows.
<h1>Black spot large white spotted butterfly
(Butterfly family) spreads wings 110 – 125mm, the wing base is white, the veins are black, and many black spots are scattered on the wing surface. There are 2 subspecies of this species, the subspecies of this island are distributed in Kenting, Hengchun, Orchid Island and the northeast corner of the coast, the green island subspecies is distributed in green island, its black spots are larger, the largest spotted butterfly in Taiwan, slow flight, like to visit flowers and suck nectar, also known as the big stupid butterfly. The larvae have white body color with black stripes, 3 pairs of slender protruding spines on the back of the chest and a pair of ventral ends, red spots on the side view, the larvae are the host of reptile vine plants, and in recent years, the artificial butterfly garden has gradually increased, and the distribution of the great white spot butterfly has also spread, becoming a common species.
Defensive behavior
Large, usually clumsy-looking butterflies, when frightened, flee the scene with high-speed "turbo flight".