What insect lives the longest? How long do insects live?

Species: Seventeen-year-old cicada (17).

Individuals: termite queens (50 or even 60).

The lifespan of insects is relatively short compared to other creatures on earth, but there is one insect that has a fairly long lifespan, and that is a cicada that can last up to 17 years. Apart from it, there is no insect on Earth that can live for 17 years. Although the cicada has a long lifespan, it sleeps in the soil for 17 years, and when it wakes up, it comes out of the soil and enjoys life in the sun, and dies of old age in only five weeks.

This cicada, which has a lifespan of up to 17 years, is found only in the United States. Most of the other species of cicadas have a lifespan of only two years. The 17 years that the cicada sleeps underground is a long process of natural development and growth.

Generally, the female cicada lays her eggs on the branches, and after the larvae hatch from the eggs, they fall to the ground, and then the larvae cling to the roots. After the cicada pupae have been sleeping for 17 years, a mysterious instinct drives it to come out of the soil, and when it is exposed to the sun, it will crack, and the cicada will climb the tree at this time.

How long is the lifespan of insects, the lifespan of insects is generally very short, the life of insects is a short moment in our eyes, but how long do you think ordinary insects can live? Let me take you to a brief understanding of how long insects generally live.

The lifespan of insects varies from species to species, and even the same insect can vary greatly depending on factors such as food availability, development, and living environment. Generally speaking, large insects have a longer lifespan, while small insects have a shorter lifespan.

For example, when the living conditions of the petite housefly are better in the summer, the eggs hatch in less than 1 day, the larvae pupate after about 7 days, and after 3 to 4 days of emergence, the adult stage is about 10 days, and the whole life cycle is about 20 days. But in winter, when the temperature decreases, its development slows down, and the adult stage lasts for 6 to 7 months. Taiwan's largest beetle long-armed beetle is 5 to 6 cm long, the egg stage is about 2 weeks, and the larval stage and pupal stage are about 2 to 3 years together.

Cicadas are known for their longevity, and although the adult has a lifespan of only about 10 days, the nymph period is quite long. The nymph stage of grass cicadas with a body length of less than 2 cm is less than 1 year, and the nymph stage of large cicadas with a body length of 4 to 5 cm such as grasshoppers and mantis cicadas is 3 to 4 years larger. The cyclical cicada distributed in North America has only about 1 week of adult stage, but the nymph stage is as long as 13 or 17 years.

However, the longest-lived bee queens and queens who operate social life such as bees, ants, and termites usually have a lifespan of more than 10 years, and queens who are known to have a lifespan of more than 50 years. As for the short-lived insects, mayflies are the most famous, and adults only live for 1 day.

There is a cicada in the United States, called the eighteen-year cicada, which is named after the fact that it spends eighteen years in the soil, which is its pupal stage. That's supposed to be the insect longevity.

There are many common insects that have a short lifespan, and many of them do not live long.

There are many adult insects that are very beautiful, but that beauty is only found in adults, usually in the adult stage of insects.

Significantly shorter than its larval and pupal stages. There are many insects that only have a few days or weeks of adulthood, such as the cicadas mentioned above, which usually stay underground for several years. Most people think that the lifespan of an adult worm is the lifespan of an insect, which is wrong.

Here's a simple example: have you heard of aphids? Do you know how they deal with predators?

It is to rely on continuous reproduction and win by quantity! If other aphids fill the belly of the predators, I will survive, so no matter how many deaths I have, there will always be a winner who will survive to the end and reproduce the next generation! It's just a mode of survival, and humans don't need to survive in this way according to natural selection, so of course they won't reproduce much, unless one day a man-eating ET will come to our earth!

There's an interesting statistic, because it's been too long. I really forgot which book I had read it in. In mammals, the number of heartbeats of small rodents is roughly the same as that of humans and large blue whales.

The smaller the body, the faster it moves, and the faster it beats to help quickly displace oxygen and dissipate heat. Because the heart beats about that many times, the faster it beats, the faster it ages. The book only mentions mammals, not insects.

After all, the heart structure of insects is different from that of mammals. But as long as there is this pumping system, it should be similar. (It's not rigorous, just for reference, but it's true for mammals.) ）

If it is calculated in terms of population lifespan, it is a bright beetle, and some larval stages can reach 30 years; But the longevity champion may be termite queens, most of whom live for 20 years, but scientists believe they can live for 100 years.

The longest-lived insect is the cicada, with an average larval stage of 6 years, and with the duration of growth and the time the adult is alive, the longest variety can reach 17 years.

The cicada, the average cicada, only has a life history of 3-9 years, although there is also a 13-year cicada, but the 17-year-old cicada lives underground for 17 years, which gives it the title of the longest-lived in the insect world. After the 17-year-old cicada mates, the female cicada burrows into the epidermis of the tree and discharges her fertilized eggs through the jagged ovipositor in the cracks of the branches.

Most insects only live for a few days to a few months, but some are exemplary of longevity. For example, queen bees can live for 5 years, which is a long lifespan for insects. However, compared to living in the tropics.

Some of the termite queens, the queen bees are much inferior.

Sometimes, the termite queen doesn't die until she's 15 years old. Some insects have particularly long childhoods (i.e., larval stages), such as those that live in North America.

of the seventeen-year-old cicada. They lie dormant underground for 17 years, then emerge and pass away after completing their breeding tasks.

However, by far the longest-lived insect is a golden turtle with the scientific name "buprestis aurulenta".

Juvenile, this Coleopteran insect.

Likes to stay in the dead wood.

It was dormant for 51 years before breaking ground.

The answer is mayfly (fú yóu). Their nymphs have a relatively long lifespan, living in water for 1-6 years, but the last stage of their lives is very short. Adult mayflies have two pairs of wings, often fly on the surface of the water, and have a lifespan of only a few hours to about 1 week.

More than one poet and writer has used mayflies as a metaphor for the transience of life. It is true that human life is so fleeting. Mayflies live to mate, and despite their fragile appearance, you can find their well-preserved remains in fossils from the Paleozoic era, which was about 300 million years ago, that is, before the age of the dinosaurs.

Let's correct a few mistakes first: spiders are not insects, so I won't say more; Maggots are larvae of flies and should be counted as one thing. Because mosquitoes, flies, dragonflies, and butterflies are all generalized nouns, which contain many species, and the differences between different species are great, and the male is generally much shorter than the female, so only one range can be generalized.

Mosquitoes: pupae in 5 7 days, pupal stage 2 3 days, adult females live 3 100 days, males 10 20 days;

Flies: maggots pupate in 5 to 6 days, the pupal period is 5 to 7 days, adult females are one to two months, males are about ten days;

Dragonfly: Juveniles (water flies) can live for about 3 months to 1 year in water, and adults can only live for 1 to 8 months;

Butterfly: The larvae generally pupate in 10 to 20 days, but there is a butterfly larva that lives in the Arctic and takes 14 years to become adults; The pupal stage has a few weeks and a few months, the adult has a long lifespan of more than half a year, most butterflies in the tropics have a short lifespan, generally 10 to 15 days, the female butterfly will die after laying eggs or a small number of eggs are not laid, the male butterfly can live for 20 to 30 days without mating, and the male butterfly life span after completing the mating task is shorter, some only 2 to 3 days.