Ground-crawling Insects That:
Use any flat dish or pan that will hold 2-3 inches of sand or dust; keep only 2-3 bugs in one container; too many bugs interfere with each other's pits. No cover is necessary until larva pupates; then cover container with piece of screen wire to prevent escape of adult.
In the wild, doodlebug feeds on any small, ground-crawling insects that may fall into pit. In captivity, give ants, flies, and any other small, crawling insects (see Part III); clip fly's wings; gently drop fly into pit. When doodlebug consistently refuses food, it has reached full growth and is ready to pupate.
The katydids, crickets, grasshoppers, cockroaches, and locusts be¬long to a very large order of terrestrial insects called Orthoptera. The members of this order are on the whole fairly large, usually with two pairs of well-developed wings. The fore pair is well-veined and leathery; the hind pair, well-veined but membranous. When not in use, both pairs lie folded longitudinally.Each compound eye is seen as an array of icets that are generally hexagonal in shape and jrm a surface that looks like a honeycomb. The number of facets ranges from one to many thousands, and when the facets are few in num¬ber, as in some parasitic and soil-dwelling species, they are often round in shape. The relative size of the compound eyes varies among different insects. Ground-dwelling insects, including many beetles, have relatively small eyes that are directed sideways. Insects that fly a great deal, particularly predatory insects such as the robber flies and dragonflies, have eyes that are greatly enlarged. In many male insects the eyes may occupy almost the entire surface of the head. Sometimes the facets in one part of the eye are larger than the others. In predatory insects the front of the eye has larger facets, and in insects that gather in mating swarms, the males often have larger facets pointing upward and outward.
See Also Enemies Insects Diseases:
Chemical pesticides, despite their great benefits, have their drawbacks. In some cases insecticides have become less potent because the insects developed resistance to their effects [2]. In other cases the insecticide has affected the animal enemies insects diseases of the harmful insects with the result that the insects have actually multiplied in number.Wherever grown, oranges and other types of citrus are not without the enemies insects diseases of insects and diseases of various types. Aphids, thrips, scale insects, grasshoppers, white fly, Mexican fruit fly, Mediterranean fruit fly and several kinds of mites all prey on the fruit or foliage. In practice these are controlled by insecticidal sprays and dusts which are adapted to the needs of the locality. One of the classical examples of biological con¬trol of an insect pest was used in California, when in 1870 the cottony cushion scale, Iccrya purchasi, made its appearance as an introduced pest on a shipment of acacias from Australia.
On The Other Hand See Harmful Insects Indiscriminately:
Because inhibition of reproduction and devel¬opment was possible in natural insect popula¬tions, a new generation of insecticides derived from insect hormones might be developed. Unlike DOT, which attacks useful and harmful insects indiscriminately, became a hazardous component of the general environment, and to which many harmful insects became completely resistant, insect hormones could be highly spe¬cific, act only at certain stages in the life cycle, and conceivably could be "resistant-proof" for many decades. To what degree such pesticides would enter the total environment and what the effects might be on other organisms remained to be established.Insects may be either harmful or beneficial to man. Among the most harmful species are those that spread disease. Usually, such diseases are spread by insects that suck blood or plant juices, transmitting the disease-producing organisms from infected individuals to healthy ones. Among the human diseases that are transmitted by insects are malaria, yellow fever, and dengue, which are spread by mosquitoes; sleeping sickness, which is spread by some tsetse flies; and plague, which is spread by fleas that transmit the disease-producing organisms from infected rats to humans. Most infectious diseases of the skin and intestinal tract may be spread by insects that come in contact with the skin or the feces of the infected individual. These insects may then settle on healthy individuals or their food. This is the danger of the housefly, which is attracted to miscellaneous wastes around human habitations as well as to human feces and food.
