The ichneumon wasp is the common name for a family of insects of the suborder Stalk-bellied, of which there are more than one hundred thousand species.
Are ichneumon wasps, or parasitic wasps, as they are called in English literature, dangerous to humans? As a rule, they do not have a sting, but the bite of some species can be very painful, for example, one of these species is pompilids, which secrete a strong poison.
What to do? To begin with, we recommend reading an article from the main institute of parasitology of the Russian Federation. This article reveals a method by which you can cleanse your body of parasites, without harm to the body. Read the article >>>
These insects can rightfully be considered parasites with predatory characteristics, parasitizing insect pests that destroy crops. This is useful for human economic activity, as it allows the use of fewer pesticides.
Appearance
The size of the insect ranges from a millimeter to several centimeters, their color is also very diverse: there are black, brown, red, striped wasps, etc.
The photo clearly shows what this insect looks like and its characteristic features: a huge ovipositor, sometimes exceeding the length of the body, an elongated abdomen, well-developed wings and long antennae.
Appearance of an insect
If there are bugs in the kitchen - 4 steps to get rid of pests
Step 1: Inspect and discard any contaminated food
Identifying all outbreaks and potentially contaminated products, and most importantly getting rid of them, is a prerequisite for successful control of insects in the kitchen.
- The outbreak can be anything - not only cereals and flour, but also nuts, spices, cookies, animal food, fishing bait, dried flowers.
- If you see a beetle somewhere on a shelf, apron, facade or tabletop, then most likely the hearth is located somewhere very close, but... not necessarily.
- Check also unpacked products; beetles can easily chew through cardboard, foil and cellophane.
- It is necessary to inspect products for the presence of pests not only from above, but also throughout their entire depth. So, for example, some bugs in cereals (for example, bread grinders) can “live” at the very bottom.
Keep in mind that if at least one insect is found in the product, this means that it is infested with larvae and must be disposed of. However, if you wish, you can clean the grains from adult individuals by thoroughly sifting and sorting it out, and then do everything described in the next step.
Food bugs spread easily and quickly throughout kitchen cabinets, crawling into any cracks. The most arrogant of them are weevils, which easily gnaw through sealed bags and cardboard boxes.
Step 2: Treat Foods That Do Not Look Contaminated
It is clear that the product in which insects have settled must be thrown away. But what if bugs were not found in flour or cereal? However, it is best and easiest to get rid of supplies, since everything that was in the same kitchen cabinet as the fireplace may already be contaminated. However, you can save food in the following ways:
- Pour the cereal/flour onto a baking sheet and place it in an oven preheated to 50 degrees for 40-60 minutes.
- Place the food on the balcony (in winter) for 3-4 days or “freeze” it in the freezer for 3-4 days.
Step 3: Clean shelves and jars
Now you should thoroughly clean the empty kitchen cabinet and its surroundings, paying special attention to cracks and corners.
- Use a vacuum cleaner to suck up bugs, their larvae, and excrement hiding in the cracks. After this procedure, the vacuum cleaner bag should be thrown away or, after emptying it, “frozen” for 3-4 days to prevent re-infection.
- Do not use laundry detergents, bleaches, ammonia, or chlorine-containing cleaners. They will have no effect on kitchen pests.
- Don’t forget to wash and treat the container in which the spoiled cereal was stored with cold or heat.
Vacuuming should be enough to remove all traces of beetles, but it is also recommended to wipe down the shelf with laundry soap and then vinegar diluted in water.
Step 4. Protect products from re-infection
As a precaution against re-infection, you should:
- Store cereals, flour, pasta, cookies, dried fruits, spices and pet food, etc. in tightly closed glass, metal or heavy plastic jars/containers. This will prevent not only insects from getting into the container, but also their escape and spread.
- Another reliable way to store food is in the refrigerator or freezer.
To enhance the protection of products from bugs, place the following in a jar or container on top of cereal or any other product:
- A couple of cloves of garlic, peeled (no need to cut off the top of the garlic);
- Bay leaf;
- A couple of pieces of mint chewing gum;
- Nail or steel wire. Keep in mind that they cannot be washed, otherwise the metal will rust and spoil the food. Dry cleaning with a cloth will be sufficient.
Bay leaf to protect flour from insects
By the way, all these “repellents” can be placed on shelves.
Life cycle and mechanism of influence on the victim
What doctors say about treating parasites
Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor German Shaevich Gandelman
Work experience: more than 30 years.
I have been detecting and treating parasites for many years. I can say with confidence that almost everyone is infected with parasites. It's just that most of them are extremely difficult to detect. They can be anywhere - in the blood, intestines, lungs, heart, brain.
Parasites literally devour you from the inside, at the same time poisoning your body. As a result, numerous health problems appear, shortening life by 15-25 years.
The main mistake is delaying! The sooner you start removing parasites, the better. If we talk about medications, then everything is problematic. Today there is only one truly effective anti-parasitic complex, this is TOXIMIN. It destroys and sweeps out all known parasites from the body - from the brain and heart to the liver and intestines. None of the drugs existing today is capable of this.
Within the framework of the Federal program, when submitting an application before June 10. (inclusive) every resident of the Russian Federation and the CIS can receive one package of TOXIMIN FOR FREE!
The ichneumon wasp is a solitary insect; it makes its nest directly in the ground or in plant stems or tree bark. Its lifespan, as a rule, is short: for females it is about a month, and for males it is no more than 10 days. In some species, the larvae can overwinter in the body of the prey host and pupate only in the spring.
For the most part, adults are not carnivores, that is, they do not feed on other insects; For some species, nectar serves as food. But the larvae can be considered true parasites, given how reproduction occurs.
Female wasps lay eggs on the bodies or larvae of ants, wasps, beetles, caterpillars, spiders and even scorpions, on which the hatching larvae feed. During the process of laying eggs, the female parasite sits on top of her victim, resembling a rider on a horse, which gives the name to this entire family.
The process of laying eggs in the bodies of other insects
This parasitic insect has an amazing sense of smell, which allows it to sense even through the thickness of tree bark whether there are beetle larvae there on which to lay eggs.
By laying their eggs on the body of the victim, the females inject it with a paralyzing poison, turning it into a “zombie”. It takes less than a day for about two dozen larvae to hatch on a victim, and only a few days for them to go through all stages of development.
Betilids
Bethylidae
The Bethylidae family are very small wasps, the females of which parasitize insects of various sizes, including very small ones. Goniozus (Goniozus) is on the caterpillar of the grape budworm, Perisierola is on the caterpillar of the cotton moth (“pink worm”), and epiris (Epyris extraneus) is on the larvae of darkling beetles – false wireworms, which are many times larger than them.
Betilids of the genus Scleroderma are very small, but they attack the larvae of beetles living in wood - longhorned beetles and other pests.
Scleroderma
First, the female paralyzes the muscles that move the larva's mandibles, and then all the others, often working for 4 days. Up to 150 eggs are laid on such large prey; the female takes care of the hatched larvae for 5 days, until the larvae begin to weave cocoons.
Betilids are very useful insects, since many of them rid various storage facilities and even human dwellings of skin beetles, woodworms and mealworms.
I only briefly talked about these beneficial insects, which are hardly known to a wide circle of readers, about the families of stinging Hymenoptera scolias, typhyids and betilids.
Author Olga Bogach
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Varieties
- Megarissa pearly . A very rare species, is under state protection. Lives mainly in forests. The color is orange, with white and black stripes on the abdomen. The thin, hard ovipositor is twice as long as the abdomen and can even penetrate tree trunks.
- Mutillids are represented by approximately 4 thousand varieties. The habitat is mainly steppe areas. Males, larger than females (their length is up to 3 cm), are dark brown or black in color, while females are orange or bright red with black splashes. The body is covered with thick long hairs. Females do not have wings, which is why they are called “velvet ants”. Unlike other species, they have a long sting, which they use to fight the owners of the nests, where they are going to lay eggs in their larvae.
- Pompilid wasps , or road wasps, are found in almost all regions of the world, but are especially fond of hot climates. There are up to 4900 species. Their brown or black body is up to 4 cm long, and the females retract their ovipositor into the elongated narrow abdomen. The second name is explained by the fact that they make their burrows near roads. Females use large spiders to lay eggs.
Pompilidae or Psammocharidae
- Crabronids , or sand wasps, make their nests in the sand. Of the more than 8 thousand representatives of this species, approximately 600 are found in Europe. In appearance, thanks to the black and yellow stripes, as well as their small (up to 2 cm) size, they resemble simple wasps; they have the same well-formed wings and short antennae.
- Scaephids are represented by 800 species, living mainly in warm climates. Their dark-colored body reaches up to 6 cm in length. They build nests in the sand or sculpt them on the walls of buildings. To lay eggs, the female finds a victim, paralyzes it and carries it to her nest.
- Betilids are represented by 1800 species, about a hundred of which are found in Europe. Their narrow body is 1-10 mm long, there are no wings, so they are sometimes mistaken for ants. Such agricultural pests as cotton moth and grape budworm become their victims and breeding ground for the larvae.
- Scolia are quite large specimens for equestrians: their body length ranges from 2 to 10 cm, and their wingspan is up to 6 cm. Their habitat is mainly in the tropics, but sometimes they are also found in forest-steppe zones. The body of the scolius is black, with light stripes and spots on the abdomen; the wings are purple. Reproduction begins in May, and the female finds the larvae of cockchafers, weevils or rhinoceros beetles in the soil and lays eggs on them. Overwintering of the larvae occurs in the body of the victim, and pupation occurs in the spring.
- The emerald cockroach wasp is found primarily in the tropics. The female uses a cockroach to lay eggs, before turning it into a real “zombie” with her bite. She drags a weak-willed cockroach by its mustache into a previously prepared hole, where it lays eggs in its body, and when the larvae hatch from the eggs, they feed on the living but paralyzed cockroach from the inside.
- Trichogramma is a microscopic species, there are up to 200 species. The body is brown or black, dense, with antennae. Distributed on agricultural plantations.
- The yellow wasp , 1.5-2 cm in size, lives in forest clearings and meadows. Most often found in summer and autumn.
Can a person get worms from a cat?
There are a great many ways to cure parasitosis. The main one is treatment with anthelmintic drugs. It is necessary to treat helminth infestation, although many consider helminths to be mere trifles, without thinking about how to get rid of worms.
- The main stages of parasitosis therapy
- Drug treatment of worms
- Why are antihelminthics dangerous?
- Immunocorrection is an important condition for therapy
- Treatment of worms with herbs
- Diet therapy and worms
- Pitfalls of helminthiasis
- Antihelminthic devices: is their effectiveness justified?
- Ionic detoxification of the body
- Folk recipes
- Disadvantages of traditional treatment of helminth infections
- Oxygen against worms
- Modern approaches to the treatment of helminthic infestations
The characteristics of the child's body determine the widespread prevalence of helminths in children. Therefore, all parents should know how to remove worms from their child.
Treatment of worms is carried out comprehensively and in stages. The main steps to cure a person of parasites are as follows:
- preparatory stage;
- actual destruction of parasites;
- stabilization of impaired functions.
At the initial stage of therapy, vegetable oils and sorbents are used. Representatives of the older generation know how to remove worms using flaxseed and pumpkin oil. Atoxil, activated carbon or enterosgel will help bind and remove toxins formed during the residence of parasites in the human intestines. Allochol can increase the production of bile, which has a detrimental effect on worms.
