Pipeline Beetle - an amazing tailor and architect

Pipeline is a bug from a large family of the same name. It is interesting in that, like a seasoned tailor, he cuts leaves and forms convolutions in the form of a cigar, tube, cylinder, and then lays his eggs in them. Most often, you can meet the pipe-driver on birches, poplars. The beetle does not ignore vineyards, fruit trees.

Description of Pipeline Beetles

Throughout the world fauna, there are more than 2,000 species of pipelines. Most of them are common in tropical areas. In a more severe European climate, 115 species live.

What does a bug look like?

Insects are small in size. Their length barely reaches 3-12 mm. Tropical specimens grow up to 19 mm. The main feature of beetles is the head, which is elongated into the thick cephalothorax and connected to it through the breast ball mechanism. This allows the insect to turn its head. The eyes are either wide apart or, on the contrary, closely adjacent to each other. The edge of the head is crowned with a club-shaped mustache.

Scutellum predominantly rectangular; in some species, it is triangular in shape. Elytra with developed humeral tubercles and strong wings allow the insect to fly well.

The color of pipelines beetles in saturated colors with a metallic sheen. Depending on the species, the color may be blue, black, red, ocher, blue-green, and the body and legs are covered with sparse hairs.
Beetles are not prone to aggression and do not attack other insects. Their diet is exclusively vegan: tree buds, leaves. Some individuals infect the nutrient substrate with fungi, so that it quickly ferments and becomes usable.

Interesting! Tubovers are often called elephants because of their elongated heads.

The appearance of the larvae

The female lays eggs in twisted bundles of leaves. The pipe-beetle beetle masterly creates houses for its offspring, which provide the young generation with a source of nutrition, protection from the weather, natural enemies. According to scientists, the formation of a convolution consists of 30 stages. To cut a sheet, a person would need knowledge of higher mathematics, while pipelines do this intuitively.

Larvae are legless, white, yellowish or pink. The head is covered with a thin chitinous cover. They feed on the sheet in which they appeared. Having reached the required mass, they gnaw a hole, leave their shelter and go to the upper layers of the soil for pupation.

Interesting! During laying eggs, the female pipervert specifically bites the veins on the sheet so that it also wilts prematurely. In this way, it provides a convenient nutrient substrate for the larva and a safe exit to the outside world when it enters the pupation phase.

The omnivorous trucovert

This beetle is also called birch, pear, grape. Favorite habitats are birch plantations. Willingly lodges on an alder, fruit trees. Immature individuals winter under fallen leaves, plant substrate. With the advent of heat, the years of pipelines begin. During this period, the beetles feed on birch buds, young leaves. The imago length is 2-4 mm.

Mating of insects is observed in May.The fertilized female selects moderately ripe, but not yet roughened smooth leaf without obvious signs of damage and the presence of pests. The baby is not able to cope with a juicy fresh leaf, so the female bites the petiole with tiny sharp jaws, which provokes its wilting and it begins to hang down.

Having chosen a suitable object, the pipe-driver proceeds to the marking and outlines the line of the future notch. It is noteworthy that he never rises above the intended line and always keeps perpendicular to it. Tenacious hook-like legs help him to keep on the sheet. The sheet is folded into a tube, like a spiral and in its finished form looks like a cigar.

Interesting! When creating a settlement for future offspring, the pipelid beetle must predict the weather forecast. If humidity, damp and cloudy weather is expected in the coming days, it makes the groove longer so that the leaf can stay longer on the tree. When drought is predicted, the groove remains short.

In one bundle, the female lays 5-9 eggs. Their size does not exceed 1 mm. Each female has time to twist up to 30 "cigars", and then dies. In the stage of the egg, the embryo stays from 7 to 14 days. Then larvae appear, the development of which lasts from 4 to 5 weeks.

They pupate in cradles in the upper layer of the earth. Most individuals remain in shelters until winter. The most curious leave the soil and eat foliage until mid-autumn. With the advent of cold weather, they hide under the bark of trees, a plant substrate.

Bukarka fruit

The species is distributed throughout Ukraine, the European part of Russia, in the Crimea, in the Caucasus. As an object of nutrition, the beetle pipe-picker prefers mainly apple and pear. Occasionally settles on quince, plum, cherry.

After wintering, insects come out of the soil and begin to absorb swollen buds, flowers, buds. When the flowering period ends, the females begin to lay the eggs, gnawing the leaf petiole. Fertility of a female is estimated at one hundred eggs. Larvae gnaw passages, which leads to falling leaves, but does not interfere with their further development.

On a note! Pipeline beetles have natural enemies. They are not averse to feasting on birds, ants, ground beetles. Riders from the ichneumonids family lay their offspring in the larvae.

How to deal with pipelines

If the beetles attacked the garden, fighting them is easy:

1. With a large population, before flowering, spraying with "Metathion", "Metaphos", "Karate" is carried out.
2. Twisted cigars are collected by hand and burned.
3. In the autumn period, for the destruction of pupae, deep plowing of the soil in near-trunk circles is necessary.

You can get rid of pipelid beetles in a more humane way. Insects are very shy, it is enough to lay a canvas under the crown and shake the tree. Small bugs will crumble themselves. Their further fate will already depend on the gardener.