Facts About Orthoptera Essay, Research Paper

Facts about Orthoptera

Where they live.

Field crickets, the familiar black or brownish crickets are often

abundant in meadows and fields. Also in dwellings or in small clusters in the

ground. Tree Crickets are more often heard then seen. Usually colored green

these slender crickets live in shrubs and trees. Mole Crickets can burrow

rapidly through moist soil. They also can live in caves, hollow logs, beneath

stones, and other dark moist places. Grasshoppers are also part of this group.

They often become very abundant, and migrate in tremendous swarms. Destroying

nearly all plants in their path. They like to live in wet grassy areas. Locust

also contribute to Orthoptera. Locust plagues have been recorded since the

beginning of history and are still one of the worlds major insect problems.

Cockroaches are in this group too. Their are an estimated 3,000 cockroach

species in the world. About 55 live in the U.S., and only 4 species ar common

household pets. German cockroaches or Croton bugs, are common in the U.S.

especially in the northern states. They commonly enter the house in bags or

boxes from grocery stores. They tend to cluster in warm moist places around hot

water pipes. They stay hidden when they are not eating.

Eat

Crickets will eat holes in paper or in garments especially those soiled

with persperation. They also eat young roots and seedlings, peanuts, garden

crops, grain, clothing, and sometimes other insects and even each other.

Grasshoppers are a different story. They eat crops and destroy millions of

dollars a year in them. Cockroaches are just a pest and they eat almost any

thing. Cockroaches feed on a great variety of foods, meats, cheeses, sweets,

and starches(like the starch in clothing or in the glue like that in book

bindings, and stamps.). When abundant they may also eat human hair, skin and

nails. They secrete sticky, odorous fluid that may be lift on foods or

materials.

Movement

Cockroaches move very swiftly. They have 6 legs with 3 joints, as

muscles contract at the base of the body the legs move. This motion causes a

roach to lurch forward in rapid motion. Crickets have wings so they may fly.

The movement of the crickets aren’t the same as the grasshopper’s. The

grasshopper is an insect that can leap about 20 times the length of its body.

If a human being had the same leaping ability as the grasshopper they could jump

at least 20 feet.

Helpful things they do.

In Russia roaches have been regarded as an antidote for dropsy. Also in

Southeast Asia, and China the bits of meat plucked from around the legs of

boiled roaches is considered a delicacy. I 1968, 71% of more than 700 U.S.

allergy patients injected with an experimental roach extract reported on easing

of their symptoms. Roaches are ideal lab animals also. They are easy to care

for, and but don’t bite or sting. Roaches have been impucated as disease

vectors, but this has never been proven. They eat almost anything because of a

wide variety of bacteria and protozoans in their gut. They help in rapid

decomposition of forest litter, and animal fecal matter. We cope with poison

baits, insecticides, dusts, and sprays. Other ways we can cope with common

household things ar orange, and lemon peels. This instantly rill imported fire

ants, house flies, stable flies, and ext.

Harmful

Members of Orthoptera cause lots of crop damage. Plagues of locusts

occur in countless millions. When they are finished eating in one place they

move on not leaving a green stem in the field. The term locust designates

grasshoppers that migrate. Grasshoppers have caused more direct crop loss that

any other insect. From 1925 to 1949 they damaged more than half a billion

dollars worth of damage to crops. In 23 states in the western U.S. grasshoppers

are considered to be among our most serious insect pests. Millions of dollars

are spent in an attempt to control them. Millions of people around the word

have died of starvation. In the U.S. the problem is serious, but is small

compared with other areas. The Middle East and areas adjacent to it are usually

the hardest to hit. Cockroaches, also a common pest, don’t bite but contaminate

food. The roaches carry diseases, and damage book bindings. They will eat

almost anything.

Sound/Communication.

Grasshoppers are well known for their sounds. These are produced by

rubbing their hind legs against the fore wings. The inner side of each hind leg

has a ridge with a row of small pegs. When this ridge is rubbed against the

gardened vein of the fore wing a audible vibration is produced. Both pitch,

sound, and rhythm of stridulation vary according to species. In almost all

species the sound production is limited to males. This serves to attract to

females and possibly to help identify members of the same species. Hearing

organs are located on either side of the abdominal segment. Males produce sound

by rubbing a groove niche on the underside of one front wing against the sharp

edge of another sharp wing(breeding session). Males attract females with this

call.

Reproduction/Lifecycle

The male cockroach is a very active breeder during his life, while the

female only breeds once. He first starts by secreting a substance underneath

his wings. When he calls out to a female she mounts him and starts to comsume

to substance. This is when to male and female join. They will stay toghether

for a couple of days before disengaging. The female will keep the sperm in her

body for months on end sometimes. When she fertlizes her eggs so begins to have

and egg sac start to some out from her backend. After the sac has fallen off

she just leaves it. After a couple of days the small larva will start to suck

up air this expanding themselves, and the egg case will start to tear. Once out

the little cockroaches look like small transparent roaches. Some will be eaten

by predators, while some will be eaten even by their own kind. But since

roaches almost always are mating this really doesn’t hinder their young. Soon

the roach will reach maturity and the process will start all over again.

Article.(National Geographic)

The praying mantis eats nothing but live food, mostly insects. Prey is

taken only from flowers, leafage, twigs, bark, or the ground. Never while the

potential victim is in flight. Many species have wings but seldom use them. A

mantis’s catching of prey is at times larger than the mantis itself. Its severed

by surprising small mouth parts, similar to those of its cockroach ancestors.

Over millions of years of evolutionary time, mantises have occupied all

accessible regions that may have a suitable climate. They abound especially in

tropical and subtropical areas and have adapted by protective color and form to

a variety of habitants. If danger is imminent, a mantis may explode into action,

scurrying with crablike speed upward and around to the opposite tree. All and

all mantises are very extraordinary creatures just like the rest of the group

Orthoptera.

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