Are moths beneficial insects or pests?

Moth is a general term for insects that have a close relationship with butterflies. Both belong to Lepidoptera. When they are still, most of them spread their wings on both sides of their bodies. They have eye-like patterns on their wings that can scare enemies. They often move at night and like to gather in bright places. Therefore, there is a saying in folk proverbs that "moths burn themselves on fire". Let's take a look at whether moths are beneficial insects or pests.

Are moths beneficial insects or pests?

Moths are pests. Moth larvae have chewable mouthparts, take plant leaves as food, and are important pests of agricultural and forestry crops, fruit trees, tea, vegetables, flowers and so on. Adults cannot chew food, but suck tree sap, nectar and so on with long mouthparts similar to straws. Some species will also be sheathed or spun and netted and so on. Some drill into the plant tissue to do harm, latent food mesophyll, drill borer stem. Some invading buds, flowers, seeds and other tissues can sometimes cause galls. Larvae living in soil bite plant roots and become important underground pests. The species that harm stored grain, goods or fur are important warehouse pests. A few species are predatory, preying on aphids or shell insects, such as aphids, gray butterflies are the natural enemies of sugarcane woolly aphids.

Why do moths put out the fire?

Moths rely on the moonlight to determine the direction when they fly at night, always making the moonlight project to the eye from one direction. After avoiding the enemy's chase or turning around the obstacle, as long as one more turn, the moonlight will still come from the original direction, and it will find the direction. This is a kind of "astronomical navigation." Moths see the light and mistakenly think it is "moonlight", so they also use this fake "moonlight" to tell the direction. The moon is so far away from the earth that moths can fly in a certain direction as long as they maintain a fixed angle with the moon. But the light is very close to the moth, and the moth instinctively keeps itself at a fixed angle from the light source, so it can only circle around the light until it is exhausted and dies.

The life cycle of moths

1. Egg stage: the time from laying to hatching of an egg is called the egg stage. The embryo in the egg of the moth begins to develop after fertilization, and the egg becomes a larva after maturation.

2. Larvae: the process from egg hatching to pupation of larvae is the fastest growing stage, and the body weight of some species increases by ten thousand times from hatching to pupa maturation.

3. Pupa stage: the pupa stage is the stage of transition from larva to adult. When the larva matures, the body shortens, does not eat and does not move, the appearance gradually thickens, and pupation is carried out.

4. Adults: adults are the final stage of moth development, sexually mature and capable of mating and spawning, but some adults need supplementary nutrition before mating and spawning.