Our world is filled with marvellous creatures great and small. The insect kingdom especially has quite a few weird and wonderful creatures. These amazing insects will definitely blow your mind!
Thorn Bug
Thorn bugs have an elongated ornate shaped horn, pronotum (slightly curved spine), that appears on their backs. This horn is used as a deterrent for predators. It also acts as camouflage allowing the thorn bug to appear as a thorn, thus blending with the plant’s foliage.
Female thorn bugs are known for being great caregivers. Since the adult females guard, and tend to their brood, the nymphs have an astonishing 50% survival rate.
Thorn bugs are known for their unique ability to create multiple sounds for communication. Adult male thorn bugs fly from plant to plant attempting to find a mate using certain sounds as a courtship call. Other communication consists of warning signals (vibrating noises) announcing the arrival and the location of any predators.
Velvet Ants
Velvet ants look like large hairy ants, but they are actually wasps. They differ from ants in having only a slight constriction between the thorax and abdomen and having straight rather than elbowed antennae. They may be seen in lawns or pastures, or occasionally wandering into buildings. These solitary wasps, as the name implies, are densely covered with short hair.
Brazilian Treehopper
The Brazilian treehopper (B. globulare) is among the weirdest-looking insects in the world. It looks like some sort of helicopter insect from an alien planet.
The first thing you may notice about the treehopper is the odd antenna-like round appendages on its head. They look like eyes, but they are simply ornamental and without a real function. Although it’s possible that the globe-like appendages are there to deter predators.
Titan Beetle
The titan beetle (Titanus giganteus) is the largest known beetle in the Amazon rainforest and one of the largest insect species in the world. It typically lives in the rain forests of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, the Guianas and north-central Brazil. Adult titan beetles can grow up to 16 centimeters in length. They defend themselves against predators by using their sharp spines and strong jaws. It is said that their mandibles can snap pencils in half and cut into human flesh.
Parktown Prawn
South Africa’s notorious Parktown prawn gets its name from the leafy Johannesburg suburb where it has flourished and spread since migrating to the city from the moist eastern forests of the country’s lowveld escarpment.
Parktown prawns are actually King Crickets – a large family of flightless insects found across the southern hemisphere including South America, Australia and New Zealand. In New Zealand, they are known as Wetas and fill a variety of ecological niches – possibly including that of mice, which were absent from the local fauna before humans arrived.
Have you come across any unusual insects that you aren’t sure what they are? It is critical to know exactly what pest you have before treatment, as these pests are all treated in specific (and very different!) ways using different equipment and chemicals.
Take some photos and Whatsapp 072 224 1116 to us (or submit it on our website with as much info as possible, close up pics and pics taken from further away for context, describe what you found, did you see any insects where you are located etc. We will try our best to help you identify the problem AT NO CHARGE.
