If you flip the insect over, look under its head. Before emerging as winged adults, beetles undergo a very different-looking immature or larval stage. The larval life stages of beetles are very diverse in appearance, but generally are elongate with three pairs of jointed legs at the front of the body. They are told apart from caterpillars by the lack of claspers on the hind segments of the body.
For some images of beetle larvae, click here. Delivered by FeedBurner. Skip to content. Beneficial insects Chewing insects Other insects and critters Pests of lawns Pests of vegetable gardens Trees and specialty landscape plants Household Household ants Household beetles What are beetles?
What is a pyrethroid insecticide? Compared with the elytron, the value of the membrane of a beetle's hind wing is lower; E varies over the area of the wing and ranges from 2. To investigate the cross-linking relationships between components, the hydration and mechanical properties of the elytra of the beetles Tribolium castaneum red flour beetle and Tenebrio molitor yellow mealworm at various tanning stages were tested under static and dynamic conditions.
These results support the hypothesis that cuticle tanning involves cross-linking of components, while drying to minimize plasticization has a lesser impact on cuticular stiffening and frequency dependence. For hind wings, both veins and membranes consist of a double layer of cuticle, a biological fibrous composite material with mechanical properties ranging from very stiff to flexible depending on its chemical composition.
The nanomechanical properties of multilayer elytron cuticle of dung beetle Copris ochus Motschulsky were investigated in the vertical and transverse directions using a nanoindenter. The nanoindentation result showed that the modulus E t and hardness H t of each layer were gradually reduced from the outer layer to the inner layer in the transverse direction. E v was less than the largest E t obtained for the outer layer 7. This may be a result of the composite effect of the multilayer.
The elytra belonging to beetles of other species were measured using a nanoindenter; E and H values ranged from 0. The obtained modulus in vertical direction E v and hardness H v of the elytron cuticle were 5.
The mimicking of the elytra of the desert beetle can be used for other potential applications such as to clear fog from airport runways and improve dehumidification equipment. Since material properties are structure-dependent, new and interesting properties are expected from unusual or complex structures.
Beetle elytra frequently exhibit fascinating coloration and some may even be switchable. Such nanoarchitectures have been successfully produced.
Inspired by the humidity change resulting in color changing behavior in longhorn beetles, an artificial humidity-sensitive colloidal PC was fabricated by infiltration of a hydrophilic polyacrylamide PAAm solution into the interstice of the opal template and subsequent photopolymerization. The strategy of structural color change may not only help obtain insight into the biological functionality of structural coloration, but may also inspire the design of novel artificial optical devices.
A reversible interlocking was inspired by the wing-locking device of a beetle Promethis valgipes where densely populated microhairs termed microtrichia on the cuticular surface form numerous hair-to-hair contacts to maximize lateral shear adhesion. Inspired by this wing-locking device, artificial micro- and nanofiber arrays were prepared as shown in Fig. The schematic in Fig.
Based on this reversible interlocking of nanofibers, a flexible and highly sensitive strain-gauge sensor was designed Fig. When different sensing stimuli are applied, the degree of interconnection and the electrical resistance of the sensor changes in a reversible, directional manner with specific, discernible strain-gauge factors.
The sensor can be used to monitor signals ranging from human heartbeats to the impact of a bouncing water droplet on a superhydrophobic surface. As shown in Fig. In keeping with the high interest in MAVs, microfabrication technologies have been developed in an attempt to mimick a beetle wing to construct a realistic vein—membrane structure. Elytra, as natural biocomposites optimized by nature over many centuries, have excellent mechanical and physical properties, such as light weight, high strength, superhydrophobic characteristics, color changes and anti-adhesion.
Those are closely related to the microstructures both on the surface and on the inside. The wax filaments, scales arrays and grating microstructures will affect color changing. Their inner structure consisting of trabeculae, chitin fibers arrangement, helicoidal plies and preformed holes provides light mass and high strength which provides inspiration for the design of advanced composite materials.
Biomimetic patterned films, fog-catching devices and appliances to clear fog from airport runways and improve dehumidification equipment have been developed by mimicking the Stenocara beetle gathering water from fog. They may provide insight for portable MAVs with morphing wings and give inspiration for the design of biomimetic deployable systems.
The mechanical properties of insect cuticle may provide guidelines for designing advanced composites. Based on tensile testing, the oriented arrangements of anisotropic fibres affect the mechanical properties of elytra. Since elytra are highly structured biological composite materials, it is difficult to measure their local mechanical properties. The nanoindenter enables investigation of the mechanical properties of beetle wings in detail, which assists in the optimization of biocomposites, and reveals their potential utility in materials science and engineering applications.
The study of the structure, functional and mechanical properties of beetle wings gives an opportunity to understand their behavior and characteristics. This can form a good basis for the research and development of bioinspired materials, structures, and smart devices. DOI: Received 25th June , Accepted 27th September Abstract Insects of extremely small size have evolved to solve many problems.
Mountain pine beetle is a part of these larger groups in the classification system, and their names provide information about their bodies:. Region 1: The head Unlike the thorax and abdomen, the head is not segmented. Found on the head are the eyes, antennae and the mouthparts. From the brain a double nerve cord runs back along the bottom of the body and coordinates activities like feeding and flying. There can be thousands of ommatidia in a single beetle eye. Through the ommatidia, beetles see in patterns of light and dark dots.
Much like the resolution of an image on our computer, the number and size of the dots or ommatidia affect how well the beetle can see. In some ways, seeing through a beetle eye is like looking through a kaleidoscope: there are many images instead of just one.
The compound eye is excellent at detecting motion. As an object moves across the visual field, ommatidia are turned on and off in response. As a result of this "flicker effect", insects respond far better to moving objects than stationary ones. Antennae Each mountain pine beetle has a set of antennae on its head. Antennae are very important to beetles, as they provide constant information about touch, smell and taste.
Beetles use taste and smell receptors on their antennae to locate food and also to identify pheromones. Mouthparts Mountain pine beetle need strong mouthparts to be able to chew through bark and phloem.
0コメント