Most people associate the ladybug with love, good luck, devotion of faith or even as something to wish upon, giving one hope of fulfilling an inner wish. They are also known for their beautiful red and black spotted bodies. There are about 5,000 species that are known to live in the world and 400 of those live in North America. That number could be even higher, if the beetle was able to stow away on vegetation being imported. They are the state insect of Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Tennessee. ("Everything about Ladybugs") But the ladybug is much more; a creature that starts its extremely short life span as an egg could add and do so much for our world that without them much could be altered, including, devastation to our crops which ultimately would affect our food supply.
The ladybug got its name in the middle ages when aphids were taking over and destroying farmers crops. Not knowing what to do about this, they began to pray. The people beseeched to the Virgin Mary to help in the swarm. Not long after, beetles appeared and started eating the aphids that were destroying their crops. The farmers named them ‘The Beetles of Our Lady’ which was soon shortened to what we know them as today, the ladybug. ("Lost Ladybug")
The life of a ladybug begins with the female laying 10-50 internally fertilized eggs in masses which then hatch into six (6) legged larvae. Just a few weeks after the egg hatches into larvae, they will feed on aphids and mites on the carefully placed leaf by their mother. Much like butterflies, the ladybug also goes through a pupa stage. After a few weeks of eating and molting, they begin the metamorphis state. In just a few short days, the sack will split open and a full-grown ladybug will emer...
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...e can grow and harvest crops that we do. Without them, we would not have as many healthy plants and that could affect our food supply as well as our pocketbook; the fewer crops we have, the more in demand they will be and the more out of pocket we would have to pay.
Works Cited
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Ember, Steve. "Insects Eating Your Crops? Call on a Ladybug." Learning English. N.p., 04/10/2006. Web. 11 Apr 2014. .
. "Ladybug Facts." Everything about Ladybugs. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Apr 2014. .
. "All About Ladybugs." Lost Ladybug. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Apr 2014. .
Basic Scientific Knowledge on the Topic: Before exploring further research into the topic of the goldenrod gallfly Eurosta solidaginis, the current knowledge on the research topic must be explored. The goldenrod gallfly Eurosta solidaginis is a parasite on goldenrod plants (D. Crowe, personal communication, 2013). Very small (approximately five millimeters), the adult flies are very clumsy and are very poor fliers. Adult goldenrod gallflies live for approximately two weeks, making their life all about reproduction. The adult female fly is identified by their ovipositor, which is an egg-laying tube that extends from their body (Abrahamson and Heinrich, 2000). In order to protect their larvae, the adult female flies oviposit the eggs into the stem of the goldenrod plant Solidago altissima. While the females may lay several eggs per goldenrod stem, each plant usually ends up with one surviving larva in one gall. Once born, the fly larvae hatch from their eggs and begin eating the inside of the goldenrod stem. The larvae emit a chemical in their saliva which mimics a plant hormone that causes the plant to grow a gall in which the larvae live (Abrahamson and Heinrich, 2000). The larvae stay in the gall and then make an escape tunnel in the fall which they will utilize in the spring. The gallfly larvae produce a natural anti-freeze chemical in their bodies known as glycerol which helps to keep them alive in the winter by drying out the outside body tissues and allowing it to freeze while keeping the central cells liquid. Once spring does arrive, the larvae transform into a pupa and they finally become a winged adult.
Bess beetles range in size all the way from 21 millimeters to 80 millimeters. The beetles are named after the French word baiser, which means “to kiss”, due to the fact that they often make a smooching sound with their legs. They have a small horn that protrudes from their head, and use their antennae to drive them forward when experiencing new smells. Though the beetles may look quite menacing, they are surprisingly docile. They enjoy feasting on rotten wood, moss, and adult beetle fecal matter after it has been partially digested by bacteria. A scientific experiment was conducted to test these beetle’s pulling power in relation to their mass. The hypothesis stated,
Crops today are thriving, and farmers can owe it all to the pesticides they use. If no pesticides were used, then insects would destroy crops, feeding off of their leaves and produce until hardly anything is left. According to corncommentary.com, Without the use of pesticides and fungicides, most fruit and vegetable crops would suffer a 50-90 percent loss due to uncontrolled insects and disease organisms. Despite what most people believe, even organic growers use pesticides on their crops that have been approved for such organic growers. Even they know that the wrath of insects and other disease organisms would destroy their plants and their profit they would have made from those plants. Also, without things such as weed killers, people would have to till the soil around their crops by hand. On large scale farms, this would take a huge amount of people to complete a task like this. The weeds would have to be pulled up, by their roots to ensure they wouldn’t grow back rapidly. On top of that, the crop would have to be routinely checked for weeds, as they grow fast and of many. The amount of money it would take to pay all the workers, and how often they would need to be paid for their work, is not owned by any farmer. Pesticides, herbicides and fungicides are what help keep our crops protected and healthy. Without them, we would be in deep
In this poem about seeing from the shadows, the speaker?s revelations are invariably ironic. What could be a more unpromising object of poetic eloquence than mayflies, those leggy, flimsy, short-lived bugs that one often finds floating in the hulls of rowboats? Yet for Wilbur...
Honey bees, or Apis mellifera, are social insects, despite what preconceptions there are about them. They are commonly divided into three divisions of class. The first is the worker bees. They are born from fertilized eggs and are the females that are not sexually developed. They are the ones that people usually associate with honey bees. Their main job is to search for food, and build and protect the hive from predators. They have one stinger that, when used, the worker will die. Next is the queen. Her job is to lay the eggs that will hatch into the new generation of bees. Queens also controls the hive and the activities within the hive by producing chemical pheromones the steers the behavior of the bees. She possesses a stinger and can sting and kill multiple times and not be killed herself. (Hoover, S, et al. 2003) In most hives, only one queen is present and if that queen dies, the workers will create a new queen by feeding one of the workers with a special diet called “royal jelly.” This allows the sterile worker to develop into a fertile queen. The last class division i...
Schwalbe, F. H. (1953). Of Bugs and Bombs. Retrieved 05 21, 2014, from University of Missouri, St Louis: http://www.umsl.edu/~thomaskp/schwab.htm
The monarch butterfly, as known as Danaus plexippus, is often called the milkweed butterfly because its larvae eat the milkweed plant. They are also sometimes called "royalty butterflies" because their family name comes from the daughter of Danaus, ruler of Argos. There are many other interesting facts about this butterfly including its anatomy and life cycle, where the butterfly lies on the food chain, the migration from Canada to Mexico, why the butterfly is being threatened, and lastly, what is being done to help the butterfly.
Merchant, M. Insects in the City. Texas A&M Agrlife, 14 Aug. 2012. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
...hy, disgusting insects. If the villagers knew what the small, disaster-riddled pests were capable of doing, then they would fear the swarm’s return instead of praising and rejoicing it.
Without farmers, there would be no food for us to consume. Big business picked up on this right away and began to control the farmers profits and products. When farmers buy their land, they take out a loan in order to pay for their land and farm house and for the livestock, crops, and machinery that are involved in the farming process. Today, the loans are paid off through contracts with big business corporations. Since big business has such a hold over the farmers, they take advantage of this and capitalize on their crops, commodities, and profits.
where beetles found only in the eastern United States. They also found the back leg of a
Yao, I. and S. Akimoto. 2001. Ant attendance changes the sugar composition of the honeydew of the drepanosiphid aphid Tuberculatus quercicola. Oecologia 128:36-43.
Insect, small, air-breathing animal characterized by a segmented body with three main parts—head, thorax, and abdomen. In their adult forms, insects typically have three pairs of legs, one pair of antennae, and in most instances, two pairs of wings. Insects rank among the most successful animals on Earth. About one million species of insects have been identified so far, which is about half of all the animals known to science. That is why for every pound of human on the earth there are 10 pounds of insects. So that is why there are many reasons why insects are so successful, their exoskeleton, their size, their body function, the way they reproduce, and their development of metamorphosis.
So overall, Agriculture is playing a very important role in changing the lifestyle of different people. Agriculture might have made everything easy for us but it still has its cons. We see the effects of agriculture and how it affects the lives of other species and the environment.