Insect wasp: detailed and interesting about lifestyle.

Description

Of course, we all know what a wasp looks like. But if you consider it with a multiple increase, it may turn out that not everyone knows the exact structure of the body of this insect.

Wasps belong to the order of stalked bellied hymenopteran insects. And indeed, if you look at her body, then between the abdomen and breasts you can notice the finest stalk, which is called the waist. It helps the wasps to attack their opponents and quickly kill the prey - thanks to this waist, the body can easily fold in half, which allows you to apply deadly bites from any angle.

In addition to the chest and abdomen, the body of the wasp also carries a head crowned by a movable antennae.

On a note! With its antennae, an insect can not only catch air vibrations, but also distinguish smells, taste of liquid food and determine the distance between the walls of honeycombs!

Considering the description of such an insect as a wasp, it is worth noting that it has powerful jaws, called mandibles.

And despite the fact that these insects have a sting through which they can inject a poisonous secret into the victim’s body, in most cases they use their jaws. This is due to the fact that the mandibles are powerful enough to crush the enemy’s chitin cover without any special effort.

Many are interested in how fast the wasp flies. It is worth noting here that it is one of the slowest insects in flight, as it can overcome a maximum of 9 km in one hour. For this reason, striped creatures very often become victims themselves, as they do not have the opportunity to hide in time from a predator.
If we talk about color, then it will depend on the species of the wasp. Moreover, these insects can be painted in a variety of colors. The most familiar color is a pattern of alternating yellow and black stripes. Such a pattern is carried on its body by flower wasps and some subspecies of paper wasps. Other species may have a turquoise or purple shade of chitin, and some integuments are painted in deep black.

But in any color, wasps are recognizable. Moreover, some insect imitators took note of this feature. One of these insects is the fly-bug, which is quite difficult to distinguish from a common striped wasp. This color allows her to very successfully escape from predators.

To the notes! Any bird or mammal that has at least once swallowed a wasp knows that such carelessness will entail, and therefore they try to bypass insects painted in yellow-black!

About the wasp sting and its main weapon

I would like to dwell on such an organ as a sting in more detail. It is it that causes the greatest interest among many and the question of how exactly wasps bite or still they sting. As mentioned above, it bites this insect with its powerful jaws, and stings with stylets located in the lower part of the abdomen. After the sting penetrates the body of the enemy, the wasp injects poison.As a result, quite painful sensations arise, and not because of the injection itself, but immediately after the secreted secret penetrates the wound.

It is interesting! Nature awarded only females with a sting. Why? The thing is that this body is a modified ovipositor, which simply cannot be in male wasps!

However, despite the fact that the wasp has the opportunity to use its sting several times in a row, in most cases, in order to drive off the enemy, only once is enough. Many times it will sting only in case of a serious threat, for example, when a person tries to destroy a nest.

Depending on the species, wasps have a different concentration of toxic components contained in the poison. But in any case, this mixture is quite dangerous and includes several substances, each of which works in its own way: one will cause an allergic reaction, the other will destroy cells, the third will cause severe irritation of nerve endings, etc.

Types of wasps

All species of wasps are divided into single and collective living. This makes these insects very convenient objects for study by biologists, who have the ability to track in great detail the transition of individuals from a solitary lifestyle to the colonial, and then to the caste structure of the family.

In addition, wasps are distinguished by territorial preferences - the choice of a place for arranging a nest.

• Road wasp - it prefers to dig small minks in the ground and it is there that it builds a nest. She lays eggs directly on a victim who was paralyzed earlier by an injection sting - it can be some kind of insect or spider, whose body later becomes food for hatched larvae.
• Paper wasps are striped insects familiar to everyone, which can live both next to humans and away from residential buildings. Their nest is a rather curious structure - the fact is that they use material for construction that is very similar to the thinnest paper, and they make it themselves, mixing wood dust with their own saliva.
• Wild wasps lead a slightly different way of life. They equip their nests away from a person’s home. However, it is worth noting that the paper wasps described above, which often settle in people's homes just because food is abundant there, may well hide under this name.
• The forest wasp got its name due to the fact that to create a nest, it chooses a hollow or lays the beginning of construction directly on a tree trunk - on a peeled piece of bark. Often their nests are also found in small rocky caves and under vallezhina.

How do wasps differ in hornets?

Although there is a clear systematic classification, confusion between hornets and wasps occurs quite often. It is worth noting here that hornets are classic representatives of public wasps and belong to the same family. However, some differences between them still exist, but the difference between the wasp and the hornet is mainly in appearance.

• The body of the wasp is painted in two primary colors: bright yellow and black. While hornets have a yellow tint, they will always be darker. On the upper side of the cephalothorax, they have a brown arched spot
• In addition, the latter are much larger - almost twice.
• It is believed that a hornet sting is several times more painful than a wasp sting.

Features of existence

The wasp lifestyle will be directly related to its species. If we talk about single insects, then they are only engaged in the preparation of paralyzed prey for their future offspring. In the future, the larvae develop on their own and representatives of only certain species can occasionally feed young individuals.

As for the life of public wasps, they have it is much more eventful and complex.The uterus spends winter in warm shelters and, with the arrival of spring heat, goes in search of a place to create a nest. In it, she lays eggs and takes care of the younger generation. In the future, wasps from the first brood become workers and take over all the responsibilities for the construction of the nest and the extraction of food. The founder, however, ceases her activity and lives only by increasing the size of the colony.

The wasps that appear in the future, both female and male, are sterile. And only in August, the uterus will lay eggs, from which individuals capable of procreation will emerge. In autumn, they will begin to mate, after which they will leave their native nest. Males and uterus will die before the start of winter, and fertilized females will find warm shelters for wintering and in spring will become the founders of new colonies.

Do wasps sleep at night? Many believe that these insects with the advent of darkness go to sleep. However, this assumption can cause quite serious harm. Based on this statement, people in whose houses striped insects built their nest try to get rid of it at night.

However, wasps never sleep! At night, their activity only decreases and at the same time they almost never leave the limits of their nest. Throughout the night, the wasps were awake, spending a short time chewing on the bark collected during the day, from which they would begin to build new honeycombs in the morning.

Who are wasps afraid of?

A wasp nest with a large colony is a very dangerous object. In addition, these insects are able to maintain a collective defense, but despite this, wasps in nature have enemies that can significantly undermine their activity.

• Parasites. In addition to adult wasps, their larvae and eggs, there are small mites, “riders”, parasitic beetles, and even predator wasps in the nest. The main source of food for all of them is the not yet strong young, living in the combs. At the same time, some parasites can go unnoticed for a long time, due to the correct color, others have a sting, with the help of which they are defended from adult wasps.
• These insects often become food for wildlife. Wasps feed on bears, hedgehogs, wolverines, etc.
• Wasps and some birds eat. For example, bee-eater, who are fluent in the technique of hunting for these insects. They take their prey into the beak across the body, then several times hit it on the branch and after the wasp loses mobility, the bee-eater deftly crushes it and swallows it instantly. European wasp beetle also knows how to hunt. He grabs an insect on the fly, tears off the sting, and then feeds the caught individuals to his chicks.

It is interesting! Beetles are birds with incredibly sharp eyesight. They can not only notice, but also trace the insect in a dense forest from a rather impressive distance - from several hundred meters!

However, neither parasites, nor wild animals, nor birds can particularly affect the number of wasps in nature. The main threat to these insects comes from humans. It is people who contribute to the rapid reduction of habitable wasps.

The meaning of wasps in nature

What do wasps do in nature? Fragrant honey, unlike bees, they are not able to give us, in addition, many species pose a very great danger to beekeeping farms. But even despite this, these insects are a fairly important and significant part of the fauna.

Wasps are useful in that they destroy the larvae of various pests - they feed their offspring with them. As a result, garden and garden plants have the ability to develop normally and bear fruit.

Earth wasps are the worst enemies of the bear. And if these pests are wound up on your site, then to successfully control them, it is enough to attract wasps by planting flowering plants around the perimeter! Wasps belonging to the species Amorphilla feed on various larvae, and a large-headed, wall, paper and nosed wasp can significantly reduce the number of grinders, cicadas and leaf beetles.

As you can see, wasps are not as useless as they might seem at first glance. Attracting them to your garden, you can get rid of many pests and save the crop.