How Insects Handle the Heat

With temperatures already soaring up to 100 degrees this summer, people are doing everything they can to stay cool. It brings a good question to mind. How do insect bear the unbearable heat during the summer?

Many insects, including mosquitoes, don’t just survive in high heat – they thrive. When temperatures increase it can help insects breed, especially if temperatures rise prematurely in early spring. Some of the repercussions include:

• Increase in the insect population.
• Insects breeding earlier in the year.
• Lower crop production.
• Speeds up the lifecycle of insects.
• Decrease in time between insect generations.

Since insects are cold-blooded they handle the heat much better than the cold. But that doesn’t mean most bugs like to roast out in the sun all summer. Insects use a lot of creative ways to cool off.

Come Inside

More insects get spotted inside during the summer for a couple of reasons. For starters, there’s more insect activity during the warm months. Another reason more insects venture indoors is to seek shelter. Many bugsdeal with the heat by changing their behavior. One of the most common behavioral changes is to seek places where they can avoid environmental extremes.

Hide in the Shade of Shrubs

If insects can’t get inside they’ll seek out cool shade under dense plants like shrubs. This doesn’t affect the actual temperature in the air, but it does make the immediate surroundings feel much cooler for humans, other animals and insects.

Conserve More Water

When temperatures are high drought can become a related problem. Insects have several tricks for conserving more water to stay cool and avoid dehydration. Some excrete dry pellets while others absorb moisture from the air. That’s part of the reason why the humid southeast is an insect haven in the summer.

Out west insects use another tactic to conserve water in extreme environments. A large number of desert dwelling bugs have waxy exoskeletons. The insect can make their exoskeleton impermeable to water as a way of holding moisture in.

Turn Nocturnal

There’s a reason insects are most active in the early morning and early evening – because it’s hot during the day. It’s not uncommon for insects to adjust their schedules so that they can rest during the hottest part of the day and become active after the temperature cools off.

Dormant During the Day

As noted above, insects will adjust their activity level to handle the heat. People and mammals also seem to lack motivation to move when it’s hot. Dormancy allows insects to generate less of their own heat and conserve water. Insects can take it to the extreme with aestivation, which is the summer equivalent of hibernation.

Migrate

Migration is another sophisticated way for an insect species to endure a hot summer. Monarch butterflies are a good example. Every spring they migrate north from the Sierra Madres Mountains of Mexico. If the temperatures are particularly warm they’ll keep traveling north until it gets comfortable.

Adaptation

Over time bugs can adapt to extreme heat, but only if there’s a long period of more temperate temperatures. If there’s a gradual increase in temperature insects can become better equipped at reacting and adapting to super high or very low temps.

Heat Shock Proteins

When insects feel the stress of high temperatures they increase production of heat shock proteins. These proteins help maintain cellular function when stressors get extreme.

If insects have decided your home is the perfect reprieve from the heat it’s time to give Vulcan Termite and Pest Control Inc. a call. We’ve provided custom pest control treatments in Central Alabama summer after summer for more than 50 years!

Original Source: https://www.vulcantermite.com/seasonalpests/insects-handle-heat/