Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The "Spanish fly", Lytta vesicatoria, has been considered to have medicinal, aphrodisiac, and other properties. Human interactions with insects include both a wide variety of uses, whether practical such as for food, textiles, and dyestuffs, or symbolic, as in art, music, and literature, and negative interactions including damage to crops and extensive efforts to control insect pests.
Humans regard many insects as pests, especially those that damage crops, and attempt to control them using insecticides and other techniques. Others are parasitic, and may act as vectors of diseases. Insect pollinators are essential to the reproduction of many flowering plants and so to their ecosystems. Many insects are ecologically beneficial ...
The eggs, larvae, pupae, and adults of certain insects have been eaten by humans from prehistoric times to the present day. [5] Around 3,000 ethnic groups practice entomophagy. [6] Human insect-eating is common to cultures in most parts of the world, including Central and South America, Africa, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Eighty percent ...
Economic entomology is a field of entomology, which involves the study of insects that benefit or harm humans, domestic animals, and crops. Insects that pose disadvantages are considered pests . Some species can cause indirect damage by spreading diseases, and these are termed as disease vectors .
The medicinal uses of insects and other arthropods worldwide have been reviewed by Meyer-Rochow, [1] who provides examples of all major insect groups, spiders, worms and molluscs and discusses their potential as suppliers of bioactive components. Using insects (and spiders) to treat various maladies and injuries has a long tradition and, having ...
The discipline of medical entomology, or public health entomology, and also veterinary entomology is focused upon insects and arthropods that impact human health. Veterinary entomology is included in this category, because many animal diseases can "jump species" and become a human health threat, for example, bovine encephalitis.
Within rural communities still practicing traditional diets, grasshoppers and mopane worms are considered vital in their subsistence economy and the most important insects for nutrition. [2] The amount of caught insects per time spent trapping varies, depending on the level of rainfall predominately, but also different environmental conditions. [2]
The most important groups are the ichneumonid wasps, which mainly use caterpillars as hosts; braconid wasps, which attack caterpillars and a wide range of other insects including aphids; chalcidoid wasps, which parasitize eggs and larvae of many insect species; and tachinid flies, which parasitize a wide range of insects including caterpillars ...