Insects underpin most terrestrial ecosystems on Earth, meaning most of those ecosystems would collapse if insects disappeared.
I'm Denis Crawford. I have worked with insects for many years either as researcher, writer, photographer or pest management consultant. I am the author of "Garden Pests, Diseases & Good Bugs", co-author of "Backyard Insects", and a regular contributor to "Organic Gardener Magazine" and "Hort Journal Australia".
The 'one minute bugs' RU-vid channel is all about insects. Most of the footage and images of insects were shot in my gardens over the years, as well as in national parks and other nature reserves. This channel is not just about 'pest control'. Most insects are not pests and this channel gives me a chance to highlight how important insects are.
These have completely eaten all the leaves on my young Hawthown tree. It started showing damage in the Summer. I thought it was just underwatered. However, by the end of September (UK seasons), all the leaves are skeletonised and brown. It's only then I noticed the larva, which were all over the tree. I spent a long time removing them by hand on Oct 1st, but I think it's too late for the tree. It's 3 years old, but was only transplanted to this spot last year, so it's not very well established and about 5 ft tall. What are the chances of it's survival, as we are approaching Winter now, here in the UK? Thanks
Thanks for your comment! Your Hawthorn tree will most likely survive. Later in spring you could keep watch for larvae and deal with them before they reach full size, which is when they do most damage. Please let us know what happens! 🙂
@@oneminutebugs this may be due to me not being out & about as much however I still don't see them on the clothesline & along fence line like we used to... I'd put it down to burning regimes in remnant bushland destroying habitats... too big, too hot & too frequent
We had a heavy aphid infestation on our sweet peas. We spent hours every day looking at the sweet peas, as they were trained up the sides of our garden seating. I decided reluctantly to sacrifice the sweet peas in hopes of attracting ladybirds, but no ladybirds came that I noticed, only hoverflies. Lots of hoverflies. It was looking very bad for the sweet peas. Then in a mere two days the aphids vanished, replaced by their empty husks. Strangely I hadn't seen any hoverfly larvae, so I'm utterly perplexed. I wondered if the sweet peas themselves had killed the aphids. Anyway, the sweet peas recovered almost immediately. So next year we are going to grow sweet peas all up one side of the house. Anyone any idea what most likely happened to our aphids??
Great story. By 'empty husks' do you mean their old white (moulted) skins, or were the husks quite plump and bronze coloured? If the latter, the answer is parasitic wasps - I have a video on that subject here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-40qZm-shHE8.html If it's not parasitic wasps: sometimes hover fly larvae can eat an aphid colony out very quickly and the hoverfly larvae themselves may go unnoticed. Hope this helps. Thanks for commenting!
@@oneminutebugs Thank you for your comment. In this case, it is definitely just the husks. You must be right, I just missed the predators, although I wonder if it could be some natural resistance. It's baffling because I observe a few select plants minutely for insect life. Generally there appear to be very few insects at all in the garden. * Edit: nice video of the hoverfly attack!
How do I get rid of them? They’ve completely taken over my cantaloupe plants and if they’re harmful to animals then I need to protect my dogs who run around the yard. Suggestions please?
I'm guessing Hawaiian ranchers would have a very different opinion to your spittlebug question: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-m16mfcQM0QQ.html
Yes, that's why I said in the video "not a problem in Australia (yet!) but they can be pests in other countries". Thanks very much for sharing the video link. It's a really great video - lays out the problem and the solutions.
You would have fun with Chironomus. I cultivate the larvae (bloodworms) for fish food. Sometimes I see the pupa at the surface and a race ensues to dunk it before the adult slithers out and flies off. Blink and you've lost.
Thanks so much for the videos! I'm curious.. How do the wasps figure out where the Aphids are? Is it a pheromone they produce or something? I'm just thinking, if I want to get a jump start on the issue.. Say, I have an aphid problem this year, I wait, but the wasps never come, and the hover flies don't either. Is there anything I can do to make sure they are there next year? I doubt anyone if farming them and selling them. If I'm wrong please share where I can purchase some aphid mummies with wasps in their tummies, or baby hover flies with hungry eyes. Short of that, this might sound gross, but I'm just curious if anyone has tried it. If it is a smell of some sort, what if I make it much much stronger. To do this, I take a bunch of plants covered in Aphids, cut them, bag them, put them in the freezer, shake off and collect the dead aphids, blend them with some water, filter it, put it in a spray bottle, and spray their fragmented remains onto next years plants? Unless.. I just thought of this.. The plants signal the wasps and hover flies.. I guess the plants would have to be blended and sprayed as well. If, by some slim chance, this hasn't been tried, let me know and I'll give it a go.
Thanks for commenting Joshua! Parasitoids (wasps) detect aphids from odours (chemicals) produced by both the aphid and the infested plant. Aphid parasitoids are available commercially here in Australia and in many other countries - usually sold as pupae.
Here in Perth, we have something that makes a loud synchronized "tick tick tick tick" sound in the bush in summer. Is that cicadas and if so, I wonder why their sound is so different.
Thanks for your comment! I checked my textbooks and came up with the Red Bandit cicada (Pyropsalta melete melete). Description of song is "a continuous series of chirps similar to the ticking of a clock". Another description: "A strident ticking call". They sound different to other cicadas (like the ones in my video) because different species have different 'songs'.
@@oneminutebugs That's cool. I wonder if that's the kind we have here. I found a video clip just now of someone with a ticking Western Australia cicada. It's not exactly like what I've heard along country roads in the Perth summers, but what I heard might be a result of millions of them in synchronization. The one in the video has 2 ticks followed by a pause, then repeat. In the wild, they don't have that pause. It's an extremely steady tick with no missed beats. What's even more odd is if you are in a moving vehicle, the sound never gets louder or quieter. It's just everywhere and fully synchronized, making it impossible to distinguish individuals. See what you think of this clip and if that is the Red Bandit you mentioned. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-owERPxKjEEE.html
@@Recon777x That one is different. After further investigation I think I have found your cicada. I think it is the Tick-Tock cicada (Physeema quadricincta). I missed it first time around! Check the sound file on this page: dr-pop.net/quadricincta-238.htm
@@oneminutebugs Oh that's definitely it. I've never heard them change cadence like this recording, but then I've probably never heard just one in isolation. I'm not sure if they really are synchronizing but I can definitely attest that they don't ever sound like a random cacophony, but just a unified and distinct tick tick at that rate. And the surprising thing is when you are travelling the sound seems to follow you giving an eerie effect because they are all in sync. Also I had no idea they only live in such an extremely narrow region that I happen to be in. I just assumed this is what Australian cicadas must sound like when I moved here. Thanks for finding that.
Hymenoptera is the insect order which includes bees, wasps, ants and sawflies. Sawflies are related to bees and wasps but are a bit different. Cousins I guess. 🙂
No mention of dragonflies as an inspiration for flying machines in SciFi should go without Lexx. Sure, the writers and designers alike were clearly on all the drugs, but what's not to love about that? And it's got an ancient and clearly, undeniably, without a doubt defeated with no survivors insect civilisation, too. Also, getting away from visual scifi, a shoutout to Iain M. Banks' Nariscene in the novel Matter (they're not in a major role, but they're there). I greatly appreciated Banks doing a bit of research and NOT making a social species a magical hivemind, but rather consisting of individuals, some of which happened to be of the breeding caste (with intense competition therein). While I do find parasitoids more interesting overall, the world of social insects nevertheless offers a wealth of variety. From paper wasps competing directly for breeding status within a colony, over honeybees or some ants killing insufficiently productive queens, worker policing to control breeding behaviour, the general evolution of primitively social species where the queen reigns through terror and intimidation to advanced social species where the 'queen' is reduced to the colony's ovaries and entirely subjected to the will of the workers. The quasi-democratic (anthropomorphisation, I know, but...) decision-making processes, be they through pheromone trails or motionvisual communication, so much more interesting and allowing for far more complex plots than 'Magic Hivemind Boss Does Everything'. I'm... not fond of psychic hiveminds, brainbugs et al. (Tangential, but I also don't know how 'Drone' came to refer to mindless automaton workers when 'Drone' in the context of bees means a male that mooches off the workers' labour, eventually flies off to have sex, and if it manages to return, gets killed off by its sisters who have had it with their brother leeching off their work. Drones are neets, not robots, dammit) I've also heard good things about Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth series, but I have yet to read it. Oh, and then there's Maya the Bee (the book, not the various cartoon series). Not SciFi, but it did a pretty good job in depicting the (anthropomorphised) world of insects. Not perfect, but yet to be surpassed.
Ah yes, TV series! Another viewer mentioned the animated series 'Scavengers Reign' which is a treasure trove of insect-inspired science fiction. As you mentioned there is also all the literature! Perhaps there needs to be another video in this series? Not sure when that will happen though. Bushfire recovery and all that.
The swarm of cicadas that came to my city when I was a kid, triggered SEVERE entomophobia. I refused to leave the house☠️ I was never bothered by bugs before then. After? Even flies freak me out. To this day, all bugs. Some more than others. The bigger they are, the louder, and if they have wings…haaaa I will pass away.. goodbye. June bugs, may bugs ABSOLUTELY NOT I will faint from a panic attack, run screaming, cry, hyperventilate LMAO no thanks I will be moving planets. When I was 16, I left the back door open all day and all the lights were on so all the may bugs and june bugs came swarming inside my house because of the light and I screamed, cried, panicked, and slept in the bathroom for a week because it was the only room that didnt have a gap under the door and was june bug free🥲 A stink bug flew on my hand once and I screamed at the top of my lungs. I love being outside but YUCKKK bugggssss😭😭😭
mate i went in my kitchen here in the uk and i seen a swarm from no where litterey pulled out the hoover and suck them all up then it happened again i seen hit my roof window and scatter everywhere
I always thought the brain bug was a tick because the species were arachnids, but then you reminded that there were also beetles so a termite queen makes a lot of sense
I'm watching this now but I can already say that if you do not append a further discussion regarding the series Scavengers Reign you will be missing a very important addition to this discussion!
Do a search for Hoverfly. Each of their larvae eat about 10 times more aphids than Ladybug larvae. I see Hoverflies begining in March/April (in mid-state New York, USA). I have an aphid problem on my vegetable/flower seedlings (which are inside the house). Early in the spring, I set some infested plants outside to attract the Hoverflies. Then, I bring those plants back inside. After hatching, the larvae will eat every aphid on a seedling within a couple of days. Then, I transfer the larvae to other infested plants. The problem I run into is that, even though I have a few thousand seedlings, after a few weeks the larvae have eaten all of the aphids and I have to transfer them outside where they hopefully won't starve.
No need, I have a video about them: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mam4lSMborA.html Depending on the situation and the species of aphid involved, hover fly larvae can be the dominant predator/parasite.
Wow what a great video. I was explaining to my 6 yo daughter how I loved looking for Emperor Moth Caterpillars when I was a kid in Auckland, NZ. I live in Sydney now and we are keen as to go looking around our suburb to see if we can find some.
Looks like I’ve some movies to catch up on 😀 fascinating information. There’s also the stories in some cultures about the ant people 😏 hoping your property is on the way to recovery 🙏
Thanks for your patience folks! Because of bushfire recovery it's taken way longer than usual to get this video together, even though I already had a script! For those that don't know, my property was burnt out in the bushfire of February 13th, 2024. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ujCCPXdFKcM.html The house survived but the rest of the acreage is severely damaged. It will take months to tidy it up. I will create videos when I can.
