Insects – some of the most mysterious, ancient and numerous inhabitants of our planet. Still scientists find their new types, each of which differs in the features in the building and activity. But at all variety of insects, as well as all living beings, steadily unites the need for food.
Insects eat the vegetable and animal food decaying and the decaying organic chemistry and also waste products of organisms. At the same time each separate look shows food specialization that allows to keep balance in the nature. In the course of evolution at insects four main types of the oral device, depending on the nature of their food and biological features were created. Oral devices are sucking, gnawing, kolyushche-sucking and lizhushche-gnawing.
Food of insects with the gnawing oral device
The gnawing oral device is inherent in the insects eating firm food: to bugs, ants, locust, cockroaches, grasshoppers, caterpillars and others. By consideration under a microscope at them it is possible to notice well developed upper and lower lip and also pair of upper and lower jaws. It allows them to cope with ease with blades, leaflets, grain crops, seeds, fruits and even bark of trees. The last is eaten by many species of bugs and termites, it is rich with nutrients and cellulose.
Wood - the heaviest food for insects. To take from it food, they should pass the mass of sawdust through the intestines.
Food of insects with the sucking oral deviceBright representatives of insects with the sucking device are butterflies. To regale on sweet nectar of a flower, it is enough to them to lower in it the long and thin proboscis. In the evolutionary relation the proboscis represents nothing but the extended jaws which grew together with edges. In a usual state the proboscis at butterflies is turned off into a hard spring. Such oral device is also characteristic of the majority of species of flies and some bugs.
Proboscis length at butterflies is various. At the Madagascar Macrosila predicta, for example, the proboscis exceeds 25 cm.
Food of insects with kolyushche-sucking and lizhushche-gnawing oral devicesKolyushche-sosushchy the mouth can be made out at mosquitoes, some flies, wasps, bugs and many other species of insects. By means of such device they pierce skin of plants or living beings and eat their juice or blood. At a gadfly, for example, in a mouth the whole set of the pricking objects, to reach till it bleeds an animal, it needs to pierce his thick skin.Lizhushche-gryzushchy the oral device allows an insect to gnaw firm food the upper jaws and at the same time to suck in liquid food by means of the proboscis formed by the lower jaw and a lip. Bright representatives of insects with such mouth are bees who not only pinch honey and pollen, but also knead wax.