5 days ago, on June 23, a netizen from Langfang, Hebei Province shared a micro headline about discovering a mantis dog on the iron railing outside the window of his home. He also said that when he was a child, whenever a dragonfly called a mantis was caught and kept at home for play, he would often catch some mantis dogs and feed them to the dragonflies.
After reading Tiaoyou’s article and its accompanying pictures, I really felt a little sad. In fact, many of us may have hurt this insect, commonly known as mantis dog by Langfang netizens, when we were children more than ten or decades ago.
I think back then, the mantis dog that was caught had no choice but to become the dragonfly's food. But in reality, the free-flying mantis dog is the proper "King of Air Combat." Not only are dragonflies no match for the mantis dog, but the mantis dog is also the ultimate killer of various pests that affect people's lives and harm agricultural production. After all, the mantis dog has a well-known and authentic scientific name - insect-eating fly!
The locust, cabbage butterfly , stink bug , scarab that harm vegetables, crops and fruit trees, annoying flies, mosquitoes, harmful wasps, etc. are all defeated by insect-eating flies. They are also often hunted by insect-eating flies to satisfy their hunger. It is no exaggeration to say that insect-eating flies mainly rely on hunting, killing and eating many pests to fill their stomachs and spend their entire lives.
Insectivorous flies also belong to insects, ranking in Diptera , Brachycera, and Insectivorous flies. The so-called "insect-eating flies" are actually the collective name for all carnivorous insects in the family Diptera.
Insectivorous flies are insects that are distributed worldwide. It is said that there are about 6750 species of insectivorous flies distributed globally, and it is also said that there are about 7100 species of insectivorous flies distributed around the world. Anyway, there are more than 400 genera and 4,761 species of insect-eating flies known in the world. There are more than 250 known species of insect-eating flies in China. It is estimated that there should be more than 400 species of insect-eating flies in China. The more common ones include the Chinese single-winged insect-eating flies, the Da Liuli insect-eating flies, and the Wu-legged insect-eating flies. Horseflies, microscopic insectivorous flies, etc.
The insect-eating fly is a complete metamorphosis in the insect world. It needs to go through four reproductive stages in its life: egg, larvae, pupa and adult. The reason why insect-eating flies can become the "King of Air Combat" in the insect world relies on their unique "secret weapon".
Although there are many kinds of insect-eating flies , the sizes are also different. The large insect-eating flies can be as large as nearly 50 mm, and the small insect-eating flies can be as small as only about 5 mm, but no matter In terms of size, all insect-eating flies have a pair of extremely large, prominent and eye-catching wide-faced compound eyes, with three single eyes in the middle.
Such insect-eating flies, naturally has 's large and bright eyes and 's outstanding eyesight , which can detect and recognize the opponent and the target to be hunted early, and make appropriate attacks. Prepare. At the same time, there are many fine and thick bristles around the compound eyes on the face of the insect-eating fly, which can protect the eyes from damage.
Beyond the eyes, the insect-eating fly has a strong body and outstanding flying ability, which also help it dominate the insect world. The insect-eating fly has long, thick and spiny legs that enable it to hunt all the target insects it wants to hunt and feed in flight. The insect-eating flies have agile movements and extremely fast reactions. Even the powerful beetle is often unable to escape after being regarded as the target prey by the insect-eating flies. An insectivorous fly that successfully hunts will inject digestive juices into the captured prey, digest the prey into liquid, and then suck it up.
The insect-eating fly that emerges as an adult insect is difficult to find an opponent in an aerial battle with its target prey. Carnivorous fly larvae, which mainly live in the soil, will always frighten chafer larvae grubs that harm crops and vegetable roots. Experiments have shown that the larvae of the insect-eating fly have excellent control effects on farmland pest grubs. The third-instar insect-eating fly larvae can detect the target at a distance of 20 centimeters from the grub, and successfully approaches the grub within 2 to 3 hours to start hunting. One insectivorous fly larvae can hunt and kill 12-16 grubs in its lifetime.
Experiments revealed that if there are more than 500 insect-eating grub larvae per acre of farmland, even if the density of field grubs reaches 4,000 per acre, they can be completely controlled by the insect-eating grub larvae, making them unable to cause damage to vegetables or crops. There is no need to use pesticides to kill pests.
Therefore, when we see insect-eating flies outdoors or in the fields, we must never hurt them! Wouldn't it be better to allow more insect-eating flies to live freely and reproduce, so that they can better help us humans hunt and kill a variety of harmful insects that harm production or life?
