2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Photo: Armando Frazo / Rusmediabank.ru
Black-eyed, with antennae, ten black stripes on the elytra set off the pleasant yellow color of the beetle. Such good looks and very small size (seven to twelve millimeters) inspire neither fear nor disgust. If you do not know his name, you can safely walk by without touching the beetle. And the name of this cutie is the Colorado potato beetle.
Colorado potato beetle abilities
Despite its small size, the Colorado potato beetle is able to:
* good to fly and swim. He loves to swing on the waves of the sea, so that, having worked up an enviable appetite, greedily devour the leaves, getting ashore;
* can go without food for a long time, but when it gets to it is extremely gluttonous;
* his life expectancy is short, only a year, rarely two or three years. At the same time, he managed to make many enemies and defends his presence on Earth with amazing fertility;
* Unlike locusts, which sweep away everything in their path, the Colorado potato beetle is selective: it loves potato leaves, tomatoes, and eggplant.
Visa-free tourist
The voracious Colorado beetle, born in the "wild west" of the American continent, became cramped in the west and moved first to the east of the United States, and then, modestly huddling in a secluded crack of a ship going to Europe, moved to the "old world". No matter how zealous the European customs officers were, they did not keep track of the landing of the beetle on their land.
A hundred years after its "birth" the Colorado potato beetle reached the potato fields in Russia and celebrated its anniversary in the well-groomed potato gardens of our, as it seemed to us, immense homeland. What Hitler failed to do with a well-equipped army, an unarmed striped beetle managed to do.
True, the beetle also has a weapon. but he uses it not for attack, but for protection from his enemies, exuding an irritating smell.
Beetle mod
The Colorado potato beetle loves to change outfits. At the beginning of life, it hides in a smooth oblong yellow egg, which is laid in large quantities by a fertile female on the back of a potato leaf. Five to seven days later, two-millimeter larvae, whitish and soft, emerge from the captivity of eggs. They are in no hurry to part with their yesterday's abode and sit on the shards of an egg until the soft-bodied surface hardens and darkens.
After catching their breath after the "birth" and gaining some strength, they rush in a friendly gang to the top of the potato tops, where the greens are more tender and more accessible to their tireless jaws. Greedily devouring young leaves, the larvae grow by leaps and bounds, changing their gray outfit to orange-red with black spots and turning in twenty days into fleshy and important, ready to turn into a pupa.
Realizing that the gardener has already noticed them here, they rush to hide away from the appetizing leaves and burrow into the ground, where the pupa turns into a full-fledged beetle. The beetle is in no hurry to get out of a safe hiding place until it accumulates enough strength to live in the vastness of potato fields. As soon as he appears on the surface, he begins to intensively fill his hungry belly, nullifying human labor.
Talented actor
It turns out that God endowed not only people with acting talent, but also other representatives of the living world, including the Colorado potato beetle. If you touch a larva or a beetle eating potato leaves, they will tighten their legs and fall to the ground, imitating death. And when you move away, confident in your victory over the pest, the larva or beetle will bury themselves in the ground and wait out the danger.
Of the twelve months of its short life, the beetle spends nine months underground, safely hiding under it from its enemies. From its "fortress" the beetle attacks potato fields in several rounds. The first detachments of fighters emerge from the ground in the spring. The gardener, who has managed to deal with the aliens, is still happily rubbing his hands, and at this time, new detachments of conquerors are being prepared underground. They come out in friendly and hungry rows in the second half of the summer.
Means of fighting the gluttonous occupier
* The most deadly agent is pesticides. But this is a weapon with two ends, one of which shoots at a person.
* The easiest way is to take a daily walk along the potato row with a small container filled with water, where you can put the invaders to be neatly removed for the purpose of their further destruction.
* Allow other insects to settle in your area. Praying mantises and grasshoppers, ladybugs and purple beetles named "ground beetle", wasps and ants will become your allies in the fight against the Colorado potato beetle.
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