Overnight! A village in Harbin is surrounded by a large number of strange insects, the villagers dare not go out, and they do not eat chickens and ducks

According to a report from the World Wide Web, in the past two days, the villagers in Dongerdaogou Village, Pingfang Town, Pingfang District, Harbin City, have been harassed by a kind of insect and have suffered unbearably.

A large number of insects suddenly appeared in the village overnight, moving densely around the house, where they moved in large numbers wherever it was shaded, and some even appeared directly on the bed.

The villagers interviewed said that this is the first time that this kind of situation has occurred in the village, and this kind of insect is particularly resistant to life. They will not die unless their heads are crushed, but they will emit a violent stench when they are crushed. Many villagers said that they were afraid to go out, and they had nowhere to go when they went out.

A villager who was interviewed even said that he was 66 years old. He had never seen such a situation before, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. He didn’t dare to go out when the swill bucket at home was full, for fear of bugs crawling into the door.

Some netizens suggested that they could raise some chickens and ducks, and they could get them all at once, but which village doesn't raise chickens and ducks, it can only be said that chickens and ducks will hide away when they see such insects.

So, what kind of bugs are these, and why do they suddenly appear in large numbers in Erdaogou Village?

one of the oldest land animals

When such a rare sign appeared, the village immediately contacted the district agriculture and rural department. After the identification of experts, the bug was Malu, which is what we often call millipedes.

Millipedes are a general term for a class of insects. Their most typical feature is that they have many feet, and then their bodies are segmented. Except for individual segments that contain important organs, the structure of each segment of their bodies is very similar.

It is not difficult to find from this simple "modular" structure that millipedes are relatively ancient animals. In fact, they have settled on land around the Silurian period (410 million years ago), and are the earliest One of the animal groups that are completely adapted to land, and they used to be about one meter in size (now millipedes rarely exceed 30cm).

Because they have evolved on land long enough, they are very widespread - they are found on all continents except Antarctica, and they are also very diverse, with more than 12,000 millipede species being described.

Although millipedes have many feet, they do not move very fast, so many millipedes have relatively strong defense capabilities.

Their "first-level defense" is a sturdy shell that rolls up when they encounter predators. If we want to trample the millipedes to death, we don't necessarily have to trample to death if we don't rub a few more times.

The "secondary defense" is their odor glands and odor pores. The odor glands secrete some unpleasant and irritating chemicals, which are then discharged through the odor pores. This is why chickens and ducks don't like to eat them.

These chemicals include alkaloids, benzoquinones, phenols, terpenoids and hydrogen cyanide, most of which are toxic to the human body, but the amount that a millipede can release is very limited, so it does not produce much to the human body The effect is that if you step on it, the smell will be particularly unpleasant and uncomfortable.

In the wild, many animals use millipedes' toxin defenses, including the well-known poison dart frog, which has been observed to obtain toxins from millipedes, and some primates do the same.

There is an interesting phenomenon in the distribution of millipedes, that is, the more you go to the lower latitudes, the stronger the toxicity of millipedes. The toxins of some tropical millipedes can directly penetrate the human skin and cause stinging, but in temperate and subtropical regions The millipedes are relatively virulent.

In fact, sometimes chickens will eat millipedes. Generally, when food is relatively lacking, you will observe that when chickens eat millipedes, they first peck them, and then rub them on the ground. The purpose is to stimulate the millipedes. Empty the toxin and rub it on the ground.

In nature, most millipedes play the role of decomposers. They inhabit under dead branches and rotten leaves. In temperate regions, on the ground of some wet forests, the density of millipedes will reach more than 1,000 per square meter. , these millipedes are largely harmless and especially important to the ecosystem.

However, a very small number of millipede species act as herbivores, eating live plants and are sometimes treated as pests, and some millipedes are carnivorous.

The common millipedes in China are basically defined as pests, because they eat the roots of crops. From the pictures on the Internet, it is difficult for us to identify the millipedes that appear in Dongerdaogou Village, but experts have determined that they are pests.

Why suddenly appeared in the village?

In fact, it is very common for millipedes to suddenly appear in large numbers in a certain area. These animals gather together to forage in the wild, and the density is very high.

If the density of bugs is really huge, it's likely that millipedes are migrating. Although bug migration is weird, millipedes do.

Japan has a very typical case of millipede migration - train millipedes. These millipedes forced the train to stop several times for more than 100 years, and Japanese researchers spent 50 years of tracking and investigation, and finally concluded that they were migrating , just happened to need to cross the rails.

The reason for the migration of millipedes is also very simple, that is, in the area where they live, all edible food is eaten up by them, and they can only find another place to continue living.

The situation in Erdaogou Village should be similar to this, that is, there are too many millipedes in the mountains, and there is not enough food to eat.

There are many predators of millipedes, including ants and other carnivorous insects, but toads are the most consumed, as well as medium-sized birds and smaller mammals.

Now toads all over the world are on the brink of extinction, and the situation of wild birds and mammals is not much better. It can be said that there are not many natural enemies of millipedes.

At the same time, there are generally few people in the mountains to destroy them, and the dead branches and leaves are allowed to accumulate, so there is a high chance of millipedes breaking out.

So, why hasn't it exploded like this in previous years?

According to the villagers, millipedes also appeared in previous years, but the number was not as high as this year, and they disappeared in three or two days, but this year is particularly high.

In fact, in addition to having more legs, the biggest difference between millipedes and other arthropods is that they have a long lifespan. Most species can live for 7-10 years, so they have more time to accumulate populations.

There is a very simple and effective way to judge the age of millipedes, which is to count the nodes and legs on their bodies. The newly hatched millipedes generally only have three pairs of legs and four legless nodes. Grows, constantly molting to increase legs and nodes.

In the report of millipedes in Erdaogou Village this time, there are several pictures of millipedes. It can be seen that they are relatively large in size and should not be young in age. They need more resources, so they can only find new ones through migration. habitat, and only these large individuals have sufficient capacity to migrate.

The reason why they appear in large numbers around villagers' houses overnight is because millipedes need to survive in a cool, damp place.

When they migrate to villages at night (millipedes don't like sunlight), as the sun comes out, the bugs can only hide in shady areas around the house, and then pile up like this.

at last

Although chickens, ducks, and other pets don't like to eat millipedes, millipedes are basically harmless to people. Sweep them off with a broom, then sprinkle lime around the house to keep them dry.

But it must be noted that these animals live in cool and humid places and may carry various pathogenic bacteria, so do not touch them directly.