The Most Common Insects Bites
Posted by Owen Jones in Uncategorized, tags: disease, gardening, health, hobbies, home improvement, insects, landscaping, leisure, nature, other, outdoors, pests, recreation, UncategorizedThe majority of insects will defend themselves if they feel at risk. This is quite amazing when you think about how small insects are likened to the mammalian interloper. Most insects will only bite if you roam into their territory.
There are also insects that need to drink blood but they actively seek their prey. This type includes insects such as mosquitoes, bed bugs and fleas.
Ants form the biggest segment of biters. All ants will try to bite if they feel the need, but most black ants just do not have big enough mandibles (or jaws) to get a grasp.
The big exception in all ant and ant-like species are the soldiers, which have huge mandibles compared to the workers.
Red ants may bite with or without poison and some sting as well. Formic acid is their usual chemical weapon. Some ants inject it, which is what we feel if we are bitten by red ants, but other ants spray it into the eyes of its aggressors.
The most agonizing sting of any insect is provided by the Bullet Ant of Central and South America. The Bullet Ant’s sting has the top rating possible on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index. The index ranges from zero to four; zero being painless (to humans) through two for bees and wasps to four for agonizing pain.
The Fire Ant, which is renowned for its painful bite ranks a 1.2 on this scale, but level 1.8 is likened to having a staple fired into your cheek. The European honey bee is on number two and the Red Harvester Ant is on level three.
Some bites and stings are not so high on the index but may still become fatal. The Jack Jumper Ant is in this category and individuals, particularly hypersensitives, have been known to perish from Fire Ant stings, which inject piperidine alkaloids rather than formic acid.
The jaws of the Trap Jaw Ant are the fastest closing jaws in the animal world. They have been clocked at 230 KPH (143 MPH). Another unusual ant defence is carried out by a Malaysian species: it ejects its stomach on to its aggressor.
The stomach acids contain acetophones which totally immobilize insects. Regrettably, the soldier dies because its stomach has been ripped out.
Bees, ants and wasps are all related in the order known as Hymenoptera. Bees and wasps only sting although some wasps do have substantial jaws as well. One definition of a wasp is ‘any insect of the order Hymenoptera that is neither a bee nor an ant’ (Wikipedia).
Not all wasps are black and yellow. There are not a great deal of insects that do not have a sort of wasp preying on it, which makes them very important in the biocontrol of harmful insects. Far of wasps do not sting their prey to kill it for food, they sting it to paralyze it.
When paralyzed, the wasp lays her eggs in the prey, which becomes fresh food for her young when they hatch out. This is usually the only time when a wasp eats meat in its whole life, because adult wasps feed on nectar and honey like bees.
As a bee stings it releases pheromones which encourage other bees nearby to sting as well. The most belligerent stingers though are vespid wasps (common black and yellow wasps).
Fleas, ticks and bed bugs, unlike mosquitoes, actually feed on blood, that is they use it for food, whereas the mosquito needs it as the ‘white’ of her eggs. There have been times in our history whilst losing a few drops of blood to a flea was not the worst thing about being bitten by them.
They also carried the Plague, which killed a substantial percentage of the population of Europe several times.
Spiders and scorpions make up the reasons for most insect bites but they are fairly uncommon.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many topics, but is at present involved with Insect Removal. If you want to know more, visit our website now at Pest Management at Home.
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