JAPANESE RED BUG More LifeHumans tend to regard insects as cold, detached creatures that rely on numbers, not nourishment, to ensure that a few of their offspring survive to adulthood. But several insects might challenge that opinion. Entomologists call them "parental" insects because one or both parents care for their young. One of those doting parents is the Japanese red bug, Parastrachia japonensis.
SEEING RED
Like their fellow insects, Japanese red bugs have six legs, two antennae, two eyes and three body parts — the head, thorax and abdomen. Adults typically grow to about 0.7 inches (18 millimeters) in length. Except for four black spots on their backs, they remain stop-sign red their entire lives. Despite this cheery coloring, red bugs lead a fairly dull existence.
Most of it involves gathering in plants near a specific deciduous tree, Schoepfia jasminodora, that produces a small, fleshy fruit known as a drupe, which females like to feed their young. There they sit, sometimes by the hundreds, not moving or eating. Scientists believe that adults may remain in this ho-hum state for at least 10 months, but perhaps up to two years.
Things perk up when the S. jasminodora trees produce drupes, a two-week period that tells Japanese red bugs to start mating. After mating, the female immediately hustles down the plant and crosses the forest floor until she's within 15 to 50 feet (5 to 15 meters) of her favorite tree. She digs a burrow and lays her eggs there.
A MOTHER'S DAY IS NEVER DONE
At this point, most insect mothers would be done. Not red bugs. A mother will stay with her egg mass, guarding it and even moving it if her burrow is disturbed. When the eggs hatch and her nymphs are born, she leaves the burrow to find drupes that have fallen to the ground. She picks up the fruit and, with great effort, carries it back to her young, who feed on the juices.
Ravenous nymphs require several drupes to reach maturity, and burrows are often located some distance from the drupe-shedding tree, so the mother must repeat this exhausting and harrowing trip several times. Scientists call this provisioning, and as the "Insects" episode of Life clearly illustrates, red bug moms can pay a high price for the behavior.
Most insect females — those that lay several clutches of eggs before dying — aren't willing to pay so dearly to be a parent. But Japanese red bug females have only one opportunity to reproduce. For them, constant care and feeding is the only way to ensure that their offspring live on after them.
Written by William Harris, HowStuffWorks
|
advertisement
More Life
Stay Connected
Own Life
|
-
our sites
-
video
mobile
-
shop
-
stay connected
-
corporate
