Venomous Animals, Centipedes And Wasps -

Venomous Animals 

• CENTIPEDES

Centipedes are members of the Class Chilopoda, Subphylum Myriapoda, and Phylum Arthropoda (Latin: hundred, legs). They are metameric, elongated animals with flattened dorsoventrally backs and one pair of laterally connected legs in each body segment.

They have two modified maxillipedes that are poisonous and can be employed for defence as well as for hunting small insects and worms. Mankind may experience symptoms from minor discomfort to life-threatening ones from their bites. Depending on the species and person, their long, slender body is divided into anywhere from 15 to 150 segments, each of which has two legs.

Along with small eating mouthparts, the head also has a pair of long, sensitive antennae and two big, powerful structures that resemble tongs and are fitted with poison glands. These structures are located slightly below the head. Centipedes are carnivorous and capture and paralyze their prey with the help of their toxic head-claws. Although some of the very large tropical species (the so-called Giant Centipedes, in some cases up to 25 cm long) also prey on small vertebrates, they primarily hunt at night for arthropods and other invertebrates like insects, spiders, and worms. The poison of some gigantic species of centipedes can be harmful to people, especially youngsters, and many of the larger centipedes have nasty bites.

Typically, centipedes are a dull combination of brown and red. Bright aposematic colours are present in scopoendromorphs. The smallest Lithobiomorphs and Geophilomorphs are only a few millimetres in size, while the largest Scolopendromorphs are over 30 cm. With a length of more than 30 cm, Scolopendra gigantea, a species of centipede found in Amazonian woods, is the largest one currently known. It is reported to consume spiders, rodents, and bats.

There are roughly 3,000 described species worldwide. Centipedes can be found in a variety of terrestrial settings, including deserts and tropical rainforests. They are consequently discovered in dirt, leaf litter, under stones, and deadwood logs. Centipedes are also among the biggest terrestrial invertebrate predators, and they frequently make up a sizeable fraction of the biomass of invertebrate predators in terrestrial habitats.

Centipedes come in five different orders.

Geophilomorpha, Scolopendromorpha, Lithobiomorpha, Craterostigmomorpha, and Scutigeromorpha.

1. Geophilomorpha, 

2. Scolopendromorpha,

3. Lithobiomorpha,

4.  Craterostigmomorpha, 

5.  Scutigeromorpha.

Males place a spermatophore in the female's vaginal cavity for her to select. They deposit one egg per hole, which is filled with soil and leaves, in the ground. In some species, 15 to 60 eggs are placed in a nest made of rotting wood or dirt, and the female remains with the eggs the entire time, protecting and licking them to keep predators and fungi away. In anamorphic development, such as that of Scutigera, a nymph hatches from the egg with only four pairs of legs and gains an extra five, seven, nine, eleven, or fifteen pairs of legs during subsequent moults. The development of the orders Geophilomorpha and Scolopendromorpha is epimorphic, meaning that when the larvae emerge from the eggs, all of their legs are fully developed, and the offspring do not grow additional legs in between moults.

The House Centipede, or Scutigera, is a species of centipede that typically inhabits homes and other buildings. It grows to a length of about 3 cm and is distinguished from other centipedes by having very long, delicate legs, typically 15 pairs, with the hind pair being particularly long and thin. Additionally, they have complex eyes and very long antennas. They may live outdoors, in caves and rocky locations, in warm climes. They are extremely quick runners and feed on insects including flies, cockroaches, and other bugs. A house centipede's bite can be very painful.

CONTROL

In order to control centipedes and millipedes outside, it is necessary to take out any items that serve as a haven, such as compost piles, pebbles, boards, leaf piles, trash piles, and similar materials. Some control may be achieved by spraying or dusting diazinon, malathion, carbaryl, propoxur (Baygon), or pyrethrin. The aforementioned insecticides can be applied inside homes in cracks, crevices, and other hiding spots like beneath washers and dryers. For prompt treatment, centipedes can be sprayed with contact pesticides as propoxur or pyrethrins. Granules of carbaryl or diazinon may be applied on lawn.

•  WASPS

The parasitic wasps and stinging wasps of the family Vespidae are among the insects referred to as wasps. There are about 75,000 species of wasps, the majority of which are parasitic or predatory. Wasps are increasingly used in biological pest control since almost every species of nuisance insect has at least one wasp species that preys upon it or parasitizes it.

Three pairs of legs, two pairs of membranous wings, and an ovipositor (tube for laying eggs) that can be converted into a stinger in sterile females are the distinguishing features of wasps. A petiole connects the abdomen's narrow portion to the thorax. Wasps have three simple eyes, or ocelli, positioned in a triangle on top of the head in addition to their compound eyes. Males lack a stinger. Females are created from fertilized eggs and have a diploid (2n) amount of chromosomes. Males grow from unfertilized eggs and are haploid (n).

Caterpillars and other larvae that can harm crops are preyed upon by yellow jackets and paper wasps. In addition to eating flower nectar, wasps aid in pollination. Wasps are social insects that can live alone or in colonies. Unlike social wasps, which can have colonies of up to several thousand individuals and also build nests, adult solitary wasps typically live and work alone.

Wasp species and geographic location can influence the type of nest they build. Numerous social wasps build paper-pulp nests atop trees, on the ground, or in other similarly protected locations. In contrast, solitary wasps do not construct any nests and are typically parasitic or predatory. Wasps lack the glands that produce wax that honey bees do. Instead, many people produce a product that resembles paper mostly from wood pulp, which is locally collected from worn wood that has been softened by chewing and combining with saliva. The combs with cells made from the pulp are subsequently utilised for brood raising. Pollen wasps and mud daubers build mud cells in protected areas, usually on the side of walls. Similar to bees, potter wasps construct mud nests that resemble vases, frequently with several cells, and attach them to tree twigs or to walls.

WASP STING

Once the tube has been introduced into the victim's skin, the sting resembles a hollow tube through which the venom is released. The female's ovipositor is where the sting first appeared. Wasp stings like two swords in a sheath lying parallel to one another. Each sword has barbs that tip backward like fish hooks. One of the swords is inserted into the victim's body by the wasp, which then utilizes it as an anchor to push the second sword deeper into the victim's flesh. To further drive the first sword in, the second sword is anchored. Everything happens in a split second, and as soon as the sting has penetrated the victim deeply, venom is poured into the puncture site. Typically, a wasp sting contains 3 to 15 milligram's of venom. The venom is kept in an abdominal venom sac, which, when compressed by the abdomen curving up, quickly releases its burden through the sting in less than 0.3 seconds.

Wasps and hornets may easily insert and remove their stingers, in contrast to bees. Therefore, a single wasp can easily sting many people. The amount of venom released by a wasp sting is far less than that of a bee. The volume can be as low as 2 micrograms or as much as 15 micrograms, depending on the type of wasp.

A venom sac, which holds the venom, plus an extra egg-laying tube, which functions something like the needle of a hypodermic syringe, make up the sting mechanism itself. With the aid of this needle, the wasp may fold up its abdomen, squeeze the venom from the sac into the stinger, and then inject it into the unfortunate victim. The venom of the wasp and hornet carries a pheromone that alerts all other wasps around and entices them to join the attack on the victim, which is another characteristic that makes them special.

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