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ABOUT FACTS NET

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Harmful Insects

There are many more kinds of insects on earth than any other kind of living creature. It's hard to imagine, but 95% of all the animal species on the earth are insects! Millions of insects can exist in a single acre of land! Over one million species have been discovered by scientists, and they think that there might be ten times that many that haven't been named yet! Most of these creatures are at most just a minor annoyance to man, but there are a few that can make us very sick or even kill us.

It is not an insect if it doesn't have:
three body parts - a head, thorax, and abdomen
six jointed legs
two antennae to sense the world around them
an exoskeleton (outside skeleton)

It all of the above are not present than it is not an insect but something else. A spider has eight legs and don't have 3 body parts, therefore they are not insects. Insects are not easy to kill, a cockroach can live for nine days without its head. Insects are hard to see sometimes, take the adult head louse, it will take the color of the person's hair it is infesting.

The Killer Bee is responsible for over 1,000 deaths in the Americas. It is an Africanized honeybee. Brazilian scientists brought aggressive African bees to Brazil in 1956 in an effort to breed a better honeybee. Unfortunately, the experiment failed and some of the African bees escaped and bred with local species. The insects' offspring have gradually moved northward. A swarm blanketed a 77-year-old woman walking down the street, apparently attracted to something in the bag she was carrying. Firefighters wearing special equipment doused the woman with water to remove some 200 bees swarming over her. Stung more than 500 times, the woman nonetheless survived. Picture Source: USDA
Fire ants can be beneficial. They feed primarily on insects and arthropod pests, which can reduce the need for insecticides in commercial agriculture. In urban areas fire ants feed on flea larvae, chinch bugs, cockroach eggs, ticks and other pests. The red imported fire ant, can sting repeatedly.. Hypersensitive individuals can experience severe reactions to stings, although more commonly victims may develop secondary infections when stings become infected. Harvester ants also inflict a painful sting. Picture Source: USDA
Scorpions: One Scorpion in the U.S. is considered dangerous to man. It is, Centruroides exilicauda and it is found in Arizona, southern California, and southern Utah. The venom can produce a severe pain with swelling, along with numbness, frothing at the mouth, breathing problems which might include respiratory paralysis,along with convulsions and muscle twitching. Death is possible. An antivenom is available.. Picture Source: US Fish & Wildlife Service
The fiddleback spider (Loxosceles reclusa) has a violin-shaped spot on its back. Its bite can cause excessive tissue degeneration which can lead to amputation if untreated.
The most well know of the deadly spiders is the Black Widow (Latrodectus) It is the most venomous spider in North America. The venom is 15X more deadly than the Rattle Snake. The lucky thing is that they don't inject much venom and therefore usually don't kill adult humans.
The danger from ticks is the spreading of disease. They can carry many deadly diseases and they burrow under the skin of a host to reach blood. It usually takes the tick about 6 hours after he burrows into the skin to spread a disease, so you should inspect yourself carefully while in areas where ticks are present. Picture Source: USDA
Millipedes and centipedes are not insects, but are closely related to lobsters, crayfish and shrimp. However, unlike their marine cousins, millipedes and centipedes are land dwellers. You usually find them in areas of high humidity. Millipedes and centipedes do not carry diseases to man. Centipedes have poison glands and can bite and therefore pose an occasional threat to man.
Thank goodness we don't have these guys in the United States. Army Ants eat every animal in there path, raids other ant colonies, and migrates to find more food. Army ants kill and eat up to 100,000 animals in a day. Together they can kill lizards, snakes, chickens, pigs, goats, scorpions, and many other animals. They also climb trees and eat birds plus insects that may live in trees.
The Puss Caterpillar is completely covered with long, silken, brownish hairs. Hidden among the hairs are short, poisonous spines. It is often found on hackberry, elm, plum, sycamore, oak, rose, and wild cherry. The poisonous hairs or spins are hollow and connected to underlying poison glands. Contact with them causes a burning sensation and inflammation that can be as painful as a bee sting. The irritation can last for a day or two and may be accompanied by nausea during the first few hours. Usually the site of contact reddens and swells much like a bee sting.
Hag moth caterpillar (Phobetron pithecium). A strange looking brownish caterpillar with four pairs of long, plume-like projections on the back, projecting out the sides and suggesting the disarranged hairs of a hag. Among the brown hairs on the plumes are longer black stinging hairs.
The Tsetse Fly lives on the blood of animals and humans. Its bite can deliver a parasite that will cause a slow, agonizing death. The disease is called the sleeping sickness. This fly can also infect animals with many other illnesses.
Black Flies also known as Buffalo Gnats attack man and a wide variety of domestic and wild animals and birds. There bite can be very sore and the pain last for days.
Chiggers are almost microscopic. They are tiny six-legged lavae. They are probably one of the most annoying creatures for their size. Their bites produce small, reddish welts on the skin accompanied by intense itching as irritating as acute cases of poison ivory or poison sumac.
Assassin Bugs come in different colors, shapes and sizes. Mostly they lay in wait for their pray, other insects, and strike with a deadly venom that can kill a roach in 3-4 seconds. Some Assassin bugs live in home and their pray are humans. These bugs can transmit disease and the bite can be very painful. One of the diseases they transport is Chaga's disease, there is no specific treatment for it. An example of an Assassin Bug is the Mexican Bed Bug. Its bite can produce swelling, nausea, vomiting, and fainting.

Some more bug facts:

The average roach infested household has about 20,000 roaches. Nicholas Cage actually ate a roach in the film Vampire's Kiss. If all the ants in the world were weighed, their total weight would be more than if you weighed all the people.