Essay/Term paper: Facts about orthoptera

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Science

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.