If purely in terms of species (in terms of the number of individuals, surely no one can do clams), Coleoptera is the largest order in the insect order, with as many as 350,000 species. Scarab beetles are the general name and common name of insects in the family Coleoptera, and huangxian dialect is called "blind collision (huangxian dialect reads like chuang)", the former is from a static visual point of view: they are each covered with bulky elytra wings, wrapped like teenage turtles, and the elytra wings composed of chitin are hard and smooth, reflecting sunlight and emitting a metallic luster.
Female Scarab in flight
The latter is more dynamic vision: when flying, the two elytra wings are propped open left and right, powered by the membranous hindwings, and the elytra have wind resistance and are more susceptible to airflow, so its flight attitude is always east and west, ramming, like a headless fly, thus getting such a witty nickname. Everywhere you can see the figures of blind bumpers, like the dung into pills of, the thorn mantis that often buzzes in the thorn bushes, the radish leaf beetles that like to pile up on the grass, and the white star flower golden turtle (which has a strong tendency to sour and sweet fermented substances) after the figs ripen, which are usually familiar and accustomed.
There is a special called "blind worm", which is the favorite of children, its scientific name is brown gill golden turtle, which is quite awkward to call, and it is not as interesting as "blind worm".
Blind bugs
Unlike other ugly and terrible scary scarab beetles, the blind insect is very beautiful, and the whole body is soft and shiny yellow-brown (it is called "Golden Mantis" in the southeast mountain area of Huangxian County, which may be related to its body color of Jinwuwu), oily and spotless. The body is not big or small, and the edges are sleek arcs, like a drip of round peanut rice. Under the two elytra wings like a watercress, a pair of thin wings are folded sloppily, like the uneven sideburns of a young woman after waking up in the morning, which is very cute.
Blind insects like to hide in the spring fields on the hillsides, and there are more under the chestnut, plum and apple trees - it must be a salad field, and it is rare under the fruit trees in the mud, and this thing is like the apple tree, divided into large and small years. Spring land is not planted with winter wheat after the autumn harvest, and after the preparation, there are plots of spring wheat or peanuts, sweet potatoes, etc. In early April every year, around the time of the Qingming Dynasty, the plum trees bloomed – a time I remember more clearly, because we planted peanuts and sweet potatoes around May Day, and there were no crops in the field during the period when the blind insects appeared - the spring rains that came at the right time moistened the dry sandy soil, and the blind insects used their digging feet to dig a narrow tunnel in the soft sandy soil. Suddenly, one evening, under the oblique light of the warm sunset, the blind insects seem to hear a command, and break out of the ground together (the evening comes out to guard against birds preying, and at the same time, the action can also minimize individual losses). Just out of the ground, before it was time to catch my breath, I flew with my wings flapped and flew, circling and dancing in the air, as if celebrating my new life. More and more blind insects are burrowing out of the hole and joining the dance party that has been looking forward to a winter. In fact, this is a blind date ball, the people in the mountains do not know, think they are flying blindly, "blind insects" Ya number may be like this.
In those days when there were blind insects, the children in the mountain village seemed to have been ordered, and after school in the evening, a group of children of all sizes and school bags did not have time to put down, so they ran up the mountain with a cigarette. Folding down the newly sprouted spiny needle is the most suitable weapon. The blind insects underground were unaware of the threat outside, and they still crawled out of the cave entrance in an endless stream - the blind insects were insects with strong team spirit, mostly a large family living in a hole. You find their holes, catch the one that climbs out first, and gently pulls them, often pulling out a long string of head-to-tail hugging rosaries, which attracts the children's surprised shouts. Some blind insects have their butts touching each other, obviously in the underground to achieve a husband and wife - this is the real cave - such blind insects are the best to catch, other blind insects out of the hole to adapt to the surrounding environment, spread their wings to fly, at this time grab the sand to lift over, you can knock over a piece, run over to pick it up. When the blind insects flew up, the spikes came in handy, rounded their arms, and rushed into the blind insect array, all the way down the mad wand, and the flying blind insects fell to the ground like shooting arrows. Picking up the blind insects on the ground in the dim light is a very considerable trophy. It wasn't until the sun had set, the surrounding area was dark, and the blind insects shrank in the hole and refused to come out, that the children stopped and won the class.
Blind insects
Back at home, give the booty to my mother, put it in a frying pan, add some oil and salt to simmer, sometimes think that the pot is expensive, just drop two drops of oil in the spoon, put it on the charcoal fire and bake. The freshly simmered blind insects are crisp and crisp, and the mellow aroma is full of cheeks, which is a delicacy that is difficult for ordinary people to taste.
Later, I learned that after the adult blind insects drilled out of the ground, they did not feed, directly mated and laid eggs, so the blind insects were a particularly clean kind of insect, and I had the impression that I had never eaten other scarab beetles since I was a child, and only the blind insects could eat them - it is said that in some places, even the mantises eat, and the taste is not generally heavy.
Blind insects and larvae - salamanders
The larvae of the blind insects are grubs, called "salvinders" in Huangxian dialect, these small insects with curved bodies like bows, white and fat, are the enemies of agriculture, and the seeds, seedlings and rhizomes that harm the germination of crops. In the Jiaodong area, the blind insects are a generation that spans three years and two whole years: adult insects appear in early April, peak around April 10, enter the peak of spawning in mid-to-late April, hatch the larvae that year are infested with peanuts and young pods and sweet potatoes, potato chips, as well as seedlings of summer crops and wheat seedlings sown in autumn, move down in late October, rise to the tillage layer at the end of March of the following year to start activities, pupate in mid-June, feather in mid-July, after feathering, they are still underground in the form of adults, and begin to break ground in early April of the following year , to begin a new cycle of life.
After leaving my hometown, I never saw a blind insect again, the ancients had the thought of a sea bass, and what I most remembered was the strange smell of the blind insects I had eaten when I was a child.