Sunday, January 25, 2015

The Scale insect



The scale insect common in citrus fruits and in the juice extracted has an 
interesting life cycle.
The insect goes through different stages also called molts.
The insect crawls for about 2 days till it finds a citrus fruit that it can draw food from with it's feeding tube inserted in the fruit.
The insect then excretes a scale covering in an oblong shape that covers essentially it's whole body, leaving some room for offspring etc.
At a following stage or molt, it's legs that are not needed anymore are dried up,[ or withdrawn] as Rav Avigdor Miller Z"L describes Hashem's wondrous creations. In the females of the scales the antennae and legs are not lost, but are reduced to such an extent that though the adults can move about somewhat they seldom do.

It's time for the insect under the scale to reproduce, it is "roch'esh" backwards to the oblong point of the scale covering where there is a minute hole that was not covered by the scale excretion.
The male insect can then line up with the female for reproduction purposes.
The female moves forward "roch'esh" and produces it's offspring. after a while the offspring will leave the shelter of the scale covering.

For the minute movements under the scale the insect does not need it's legs, but still is able to move.
The snake that hashem removed it's legs, is still a beryiah, can still move, etc.
There is another fascinating thing about the life cycle of the scale insect. It's legs do not have joints, so they can't fold. With the legs in it's original position will prevent the insect from being able to be in position for reproduction.Nif'lois ha'borei.

The legs are not necessarily removed, it may be withdrawn into the body. There are no dried out legs found. In the females of the scales the antennae and legs are not lost, but are reduced to such an extent that though the adults can move about somewhat they seldom do.

Anonymous
When the scale insect has to reproduce, and goes into stage #3, it stops feeding entirely [the feeding tube is withdrawn]. The salmon when they go to spawn, they also stop all eating completely.

After it was with the male scale insect it does not continue to feed at all, it just reproduces. then it's in the next stage of its cycle and does not continue to feed.

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