vayda on Nostr: 🚨 ARTHROPOD OF THE DAY 🚨 Adelges tsugae, the hemlock woolly adelgid -or HWA - ...
🚨 ARTHROPOD OF THE DAY 🚨
Adelges tsugae, the hemlock woolly adelgid -or HWA - is an insect of the order Hemiptera (true bugs) native to East Asia. It feeds by sucking sap from hemlock and spruce trees.
An adult individual body length is typically 0.8 mm, and is oval in shape. The tiny brown-colored insect has four thread-like stylets that are bundled together and function as a mouthpart. Three times the length of its body, the stylet bundle pierces the host plant's parenchymatic ray tissue to derive nutrition from stored reserves. It may also inject a toxin while feeding. The resulting desiccation causes the tree to lose needles and not produce new growth.
The HWA has a complicated life cycle that involves hemlock as well as spruce trees. On eastern hemlock, HWA produces two generations a year, an overwintering generation (sistens) and a spring generation (progrediens). These two generations overlap in the spring. The progrediens has two forms: a wingless form that remains on the hemlock and a winged form (sexuparae) that flies in search of a suitable spruce tree upon which to start a sexual reproductive cycle.
Adelges tsugae, the hemlock woolly adelgid -or HWA - is an insect of the order Hemiptera (true bugs) native to East Asia. It feeds by sucking sap from hemlock and spruce trees.
An adult individual body length is typically 0.8 mm, and is oval in shape. The tiny brown-colored insect has four thread-like stylets that are bundled together and function as a mouthpart. Three times the length of its body, the stylet bundle pierces the host plant's parenchymatic ray tissue to derive nutrition from stored reserves. It may also inject a toxin while feeding. The resulting desiccation causes the tree to lose needles and not produce new growth.
The HWA has a complicated life cycle that involves hemlock as well as spruce trees. On eastern hemlock, HWA produces two generations a year, an overwintering generation (sistens) and a spring generation (progrediens). These two generations overlap in the spring. The progrediens has two forms: a wingless form that remains on the hemlock and a winged form (sexuparae) that flies in search of a suitable spruce tree upon which to start a sexual reproductive cycle.