Strange insects always trigger extraordinary psychological reactions, or feel great pleasure for a beautiful butterfly ( monarch ) , or a roach that is running around , but these are insects that we can easily see and observe and study. There are also tiny insects, so small that they are difficult for the naked eye to spot, and perhaps they can only be seen flying in the sky, playing in the water or crawling on the ground with the help of radar.
People usually like to name these tiny bugs in terms that are vivid and cute. For example: "pygmy blue butterfly" and "tinkerbella wasp". Unfortunately, little is known about these tiny bugs because they are so small and their relationship with humans is not so important that not only are they difficult to spot, but scientists are also inconvenient to study, pay little attention to, or pay little attention to them. From a spider smaller than a pin to a mantis a centimeter long, they are the world's tiniest magic bugs. Below we list 9 species of bugs in the world that are among their kind.
1. The smallest butterfly - Western pygmy blue
Most butterflies look so beautiful and elegant, and people living on the earth, whether ancient or modern, Chinese or foreign, like them very much. Fossil evidence suggests that butterflies lived on Earth dating back more than 200 million years. Butterflies that lived on Earth at that time could fly among dinosaurs, and they were the ancestors of modern butterflies. They have survived to this day, and I don't know how many extinction events of different scales have been experienced, and the surviving species have evolved and differentiated to form a variety of butterflies. To date, more than 180,000 species of Lepidoptera insects have been discovered or detracted, including not only butterflies but also moths.
In the butterfly family, the youngest member is thought to be the pygmy blue butterfly of the family Lycaenidae. Among them, the western pygmy blue butterfly (Western pygmy blue butterfly) is spread across North America, west to Hawaii and the Middle East. One can identify them by the copper-brown and dark blue patterns on the base of the wings. The smallest western pygmy blue butterfly has a wingspan of only 12 mm. This is the eastern pygmy blue butterfly, which lives in the forests of the Atlantic coast.
2. The smallest spider - the Pato spider
Most of the spiders found in the world, especially those that make their way in the home environment, are beneficial, not harmful. This also includes the world's smallest spider, the Patu spider ( ).
The Pato spider lives in northern Colombia and is so small that it is difficult for people to detect them with the naked eye. Males are only 1/3 mm long, even smaller than the needle of a pin. It has been suggested that the male Annapistura spider ( ) growing in West Africa is smaller , and the female Annabestura spider found is slightly larger than the Pato spider , because in the arachnid order , the male individual is always much smaller than the female individual , so the male Annabstura spider should be smaller than the Pato spider. But no one has yet found the male Anemistura spider. Therefore, the Patoo spider is still considered to be the smallest spider in the world.
3. The smallest dragonfly - red dwarf dragonfly (little red dragonfly)
In the insect order , the insect genus Dragonfly is a medium to large insect. In fact, the prehistoric ancestor of dragonflies, the giant dragonfly, is the largest known insect with a wingspan of more than 70 cm. The fossil record shows that they existed on Earth dating back 300 million years, and they were predatory insects that fed on other insects. In contrast, modern dragonfly species are much smaller in size. Among modern species, the largest species of dragonflies can have a wingspan of up to 20 cm and a body length of up to 12 cm.
At the other extreme, the smallest dragonflies in the world are scarlet dwarf dragonfly. The red dwarf dragonfly is also known as the northern pygmyfly or tiny dragonfly. Red dwarfs belong to the family Libellulidae , and their main range extends from Southeast Asia to China and Japan , and occasionally in Australia. With a wingspan of only 20 mm, the smallest red dwarf dragonfly is the smallest dragonfly in the world ever discovered.
4. The smallest moth - the pygmy moth
In Lepidoptera, butterflies are usually active during the warmer days, and moths tend to fly at night. However, using this property to distinguish between butterflies and moths can also be wrong. There is a type of butterfly, the common evening brown, which is a butterfly that is nocturnal. In addition, there are many moths that can move during the day. The best way to distinguish butterflies from moths is to look at their antennae, which have large spherical or hook-shaped legs at the ends of their antennae, and fine tips at the ends of moth antennae.
The smallest moths in the world come from the family Nepticulidae, which are known as pigmy moths or midget moths. Some species in the family Micromothidae, such as the pygmy sorrel moth, have a wingspan of only 3 mm, while the average wing span of the general moth is 25 mm. Their tiny larvae burrow into the leaves of different host plants to feed, and they leave obvious marks (pests) after constantly chewing on the leaf flesh.
5. The smallest mantis - Bobu pygmy mantis
Mantises are insects that have a special relationship with humans. The ancient Greeks believed that mantises had supernatural powers, and in ancient Egyptian literature, mantises were always deified by people. In China, people always have a mood of love and reverence for praying mantises, and in some literary works, the praying mantis seems to be a symbol of courage and fearlessness. In fact, mantises are very skillful and strategic in arm-raising fighting, so people were inspired by them to create Mantis Fist. In addition, praying mantises are also one of the few insects that can be kept as pets.
There are about 2400 species of mantises in the order Mantodea, and large mantises can reach a length of up to 9 cm when upright. However, the smallest mantises, the Bob Mantis ( Bob Mantis ), are only 1 cm long and are distributed in Australia.
6. The smallest scorpion - the miniature scorpion
Scorpions are generally considered to be one of the most ferocious and deadly bugs. It is also true that some species of scorpions are able to repel or defeat large predators. Giant scorpions, whose predation ability today is estimated to have evolved 430 million years ago, have complex morphological characteristics such as a tail with long venomous stingers, a curved hind abdomen, powerful claws (claws), and a hard and thick exoskeleton (exoskeleton) that can act as armor to protect the body. But scorpion venom is poisonous, and there are 25 species of scorpions that produce toxins that can kill humans. This makes even the smallest scorpion a frightening little bug. The smallest scorpions in the world are miniature scorpions ( ) , which scientists discovered in 2014 on the island of GreatEr Antria in the Dominican Republic. An adult miniature scorpion is only 1mm long, which also makes its small claws and stingers less intimidating and even a little cute.
7. The smallest fly – a type of flea fly
There is a species of flea fly ( ) , which is less than 0.5 mm long , and this flea fly is the smallest flying kunzu on Earth. These tiny flea flies lay their eggs on the head of the ant, and once the egg hatches, the larva burrows into the parasite to grow, and they begin to devour the host from the inside out, eventually killing the ant. Although this sounds like a rather scary thing, in the insect world, there are many parasitic insects like this, such as a variety of parasitic bees, a variety of parasitic flies, etc., and some kinds of parasitic insects are used by people to carry out biological control of pests.
8. The smallest mosquito - Lou Wei blue ribbon mosquito
Bloodthirsty mosquitoes are the most annoying, not only because they bite and suck blood, but also because some species of bloodthirsty mosquitoes also spread diseases, even fatal infectious diseases.
Fortunately, one of the smallest mosquitoes in the world, called the Louvey Blue Ribbon Mosquito , does not like to suck human blood. The mosquitoes are only 2.5 mm long and like to suck the bodily fluids of frogs and other amphibians. Lou Wei blue-ribbon mosquitoes use their keen sense of hearing to pinpoint the location of the host animals and then fly towards them. Sensitivity to crunching and other sounds to locate the target. From Texas to the south to Florida and north to North Carolina, it is the distribution area of the Louwe blue-banded mosquito.
9. The smallest peak – the stalk-winged egg bee
Hymenoptera is a large order of insects that includes a variety of bees, wasps, parasitic wasps, and ants. The world's smallest hymenopteran insects come from fairyfly or fairy wasp in the family Stilbene. The average length of their bodies is only 0.5 to 1mm. Irish entomologist Alexander Henry Haliday first discovered the pinnacles of the stalks in 1833 because of their small size, describing them as "the very atoms of the order Hymenoptera". The stalk-winged egg bee is found all over the world and thrives in a wide variety of environments and ecosystems, from humid rainforests to dry desert environments.
The Stinging Egg Bee ( ) is a small species of bee in the family Stalk-winged Egg Bees that do not exceed 0.25 mm in average body length. But this is not the smallest bee, the smallest bee species in the stalk-winged egg bee family is , its body length is only 0.139 mm long, so it is almost impossible to see them with the naked eye. They have neither wings nor eyes, only mouth-like openings on their heads, and a pair of very tiny antennae. The smallest flying winged bee species are also a species of bee in the family Singulatinidae, called the 0.15 mm long, which is distributed in Hawaii, Costa Rica and Trinidad. It is a close relative of the TinkerBell Egg Wasp.