Steppe viper
The viper reaches a size of 40-50 cm in length, its muzzle is slightly pointed, the skin scales are gray-brown in color, with a zigzag pattern located on the back and spots on the sides in two rows. The head is decorated with a symmetrical pattern, the viper’s abdomen is light.
The steppe viper is found on the Kerch Peninsula, found near Lake Sivash, in the north of Crimea, and occasionally in the foothills. Very rarely caught my eye in the mountains.
Sergei Leonov noted that vipers, as a rule, do not attack a person themselves, but more often try to crawl away so as not to attract attention. This type of snake feeds on grasshoppers, small lizards and locusts.
Cicada - a symbol of resurrection
People's attitudes towards cicada singing vary greatly. From complete rejection to enthusiastic adoration. Cicadas irritated the Polish traveler A. Fiedler and the Czech travelers Zikmund and Hanzelka. The ancient Romans allegedly did not like them. M. Voloshin also did not like it, calling their songs “evil screams,” but if you list cicada fans, then you can operate with entire nations: Greeks, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesians, French, Italians, Turks.
Nazim Hikmet, for example, called the sounds made by cicadas “bright, joyful songs.” And one more flattering statement for cicadas, belonging to the American poet Walt Wee.
Crimean scorpion
The length of the scorpion is about 40 millimeters, the color is light yellow, the claws are brown. It has 3 pairs of eyes (a pair on top and one on the sides).
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It usually lives on the southern Crimean coast, but can also be found along the entire length of the coast from Sevastopol to Kerch. Scorpions usually live in rock crevices or rock cracks, sometimes in abandoned buildings. There have been cases when they crawled into homes, especially into shower rooms, where it is always damp and cool.
Sergei Leonov assured that Crimean scorpions do not pose a great danger to people, with the exception of allergy sufferers.
Ground beetle legs feed
A predator, if it is not an ambush predator, must surpass its prey in movement speed, and therefore the ground beetle, like the wolf, feeds on its legs. It is quite difficult to catch a ground beetle. Not only is she fast, she is also evasive. Her legs are strong, long, and muscular. During the night, in pursuit of prey and in search of it, the Crimean ground beetle can run up to 2 km, and this, with a beetle length of 3-4 cm, is almost a record. You don’t have to run in a straight line, you have to search, find, catch up on rough terrain, and then also maneuver, looking for the victim’s most convenient vulnerable spots for attack. Among the latter are caterpillars, beetles, terrestrial mollusks, insect eggs, and especially often among mollusks, grape snails, slugs and jagged bulimins.
The jaws of ground beetles are as strong and powerful as their legs. They easily crush the chitinous covers of insects and tear the prey into pieces. Slugs and snails are like a gift of fate for predators. There is no need to chase after them, all you have to worry about is finding them and biting into the tender, juicy body. Snails are especially convenient. They have pulp in a ready-made armored “saucepan”, so you won’t lose a single piece.
South Russian tarantula
This spider, popularly known as “mizgir,” settled on Tarkhankut recently, but has already been able to bring a lot of trouble to humans.
This creature lives in vertical burrows, which it digs independently in the ground and has the ability to jump up to half a meter and catch up with its prey. It is mainly nocturnal, and it is very difficult, but possible, to meet it during the day. The bite of this tarantula is not fatal to humans, but provokes local swelling and pain with a burning sensation, like a hornet bite.
Lacewings - Night Elves
lacewings that look like winged elves fly into the light . They also look like pale green microdragonflies in color. Four transparent, densely mesh wings, shimmering with mother-of-pearl, as if made of the finest transparent fleur, for which the lacewing is also called the “flern-girl”. Her body is delicate, her antennae are long, and her eyes are bright, sparkling and, most importantly, golden. However, agricultural workers love them not for their beautiful eyes, but for the monstrous gluttony of lacewing larvae. Their appetite is like that of the well-known hero of Rabelais - Gargantua. For example, food for one-time consumption was brought in by cartloads and it’s still not enough, but a tiny lacewing larva during its short life will eat several hundred aphids or a thousand spider mites and that’s also not enough for it. If both of them are not “at hand”, they attack those six-legged animals that are weaker, and if they are not there, they can dine on each other.
The female lays eggs in a very peculiar way. In the center of the aphid colony, it secretes droplets of sticky liquid onto the leaf, then bends its abdomen upward and pulls this liquid upward. It immediately hardens in the air and the result is a thin stalk, like a spider’s web, on the top of which the lacewing lays a pearl-green egg.
Karakurt (black widow)
In Crimea, karakurt can be found almost everywhere, with the exception of the southern coast of Crimea. Such information is available on the official page of the Karadag Scientific Station named after T. I. Vyazemsky.
Karakurt likes to hide in wormwood thickets, heaps of garbage and ravines. When you see a scattered layer of cobwebs on the ground, you should be wary, as this is a typical sign of a settlement of the karakurt family.
This black spider is poisonous, large in size and has long legs. The most dangerous is the female spider. The venom released by a black widow during a bite paralyzes the respiratory center in the medulla oblongata. Researchers say the spider attacks when it senses danger. Its bites usually occur on the arms and legs, mainly due to human inattention.
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Bumblebees buzz on "C and F-Sharp"
At the height of summer, bumblebee families are in full force. In the fall, all but the female will die. In the spring, the overwintered founder of the genus will build a nest under moss, in rotten stumps or in abandoned rodent burrows and immediately hatch sexually underdeveloped worker bumblebees. With their help, she will expand the nest and increase the number of cells in it. In each of them the female will lay an egg per ball of pollen. An old Russian riddle about a bumblebee said: “The singer rooster built a crib, in this crib there are 60 cribs. There is one sheep in each shed.” After some time, the second line of worker bumblebees emerge from the eggs, collecting nectar and pollen for the female and feeding the next batch of young. It already includes normal males and future mothers of families. The latter, in a fertilized state, will have to spend the winter and build nests next spring, in April.
Moths, Surveyors, Geometrides
Widespread small moths are so named because, lacking abdominal legs, their caterpillars do not crawl, but seem to step from place to place, bending their bodies in an arc. So they move with a “hunchbacked” step, as if measuring the path inch by inch. In the old days there was such a measure of length - a span, equal to the distance from the end of the thumb to the index finger, if they were placed as a “gate” on the table. In V.I. Dahl’s dictionary it is said about such a caterpillar: “while crawling, it bends forward, as if measuring a span.” Therefore - moths, surveyors and geometrides. The latter is from the word “geometry,” meaning “the science of measuring the earth.”
The absence of middle abdominal legs helps moths take deceptive defensive poses. If someone disturbs the caterpillar, it stretches out its body, places it at an angle to the branch and freezes. Holding itself up with its back false suction legs, it pretends to be a dry, side branch or twig. In Holland they are called “knot caterpillars”.
Ladybug
The seven-spotted ladybug belongs to the category of impatiens for birds. Adults know and don’t get involved, if you peck, you won’t spit it out, but the feathered children, who are interested in a bright, beautiful bug, try it. He tries it and swears off it for the rest of his life, it’s too caustic and unpleasant to the taste. This is the ladybug's only defense. That's why she's alive. The bug secretes a caustic liquid with its knees, squeezing the joints of its legs. He also has another method of defense. As soon as you pick it up, it will immediately die, fall into a sort of “faint”, pretend to be dead. Not everyone will attack a dead person. After some time, the nervous shock passes, and the bug continues to live and thrive.
In the spring, the female ladybug lays about fifty orange eggs in clusters on the leaves, from which larvae hatch after 5-14 days. They are gray, covered with dark warts and red spots. After 30-40 days, the larva immediately turns into an orange-red pupa on the leaf, which in Ukraine is called “God's doll”.
Wedding illumination with fireflies
There are plenty of enthusiastic descriptions of summer nights illuminated by fireflies in the literature. The famous traveler and explorer of the Far East V.K. Arsenyev and his companions somehow found such a night on Sikhote-Alin. Here's how he writes about it: “The whole air was filled with blinking bluish sparks. These were fireflies. The light emitted by them was intermittent and lasted no more each time. seconds. By following one such spark, it was possible to trace the flight of each. insect. They say that immigrants from Russia, seeing such a flashing light for the first time, shot at it with guns and ran away in fear. Now these were not single insects, there were thousands of thousands, millions of them. It was some kind of dance of light.”
In the south of the country this phenomenon is no less impressive. While on New Athos, S. Ya. Marshak also became interested in fireflies and in a letter to his children and wife he says: “It is very interesting to follow one firefly. He flies in zigzags, in angles, like a fish frolicking in good weather. Some say it glows with a greenish light, others say it glows bluish, and others say it glows yellow.
Watcher Emperor
A true giant, it belongs to one of the largest species of dragonflies, its wingspan reaches 110 mm. The peculiarity of the patrolman is the speed of his flight and ease of maneuvering. It owes this to its unique wings: the front and rear wings can move alternately. A dragonfly can run at a speed of 50 kilometers per hour. The majority of a patrolman's head is occupied by his eyes. Dragonflies have one of the most complex insects in the class. The daytime dragonfly recognizes blue light and ultraviolet light well. Thanks to this, she can notice prey or a predator at a distance of 8 meters. And the viewing angle is 360 degrees. Try to sneak up unnoticed!
"Drunken" Hawk Moth
Butterflies from the family Nymphalidae taste food with their feet. They have a special taste organ on their leg. A kind of airy creature will sit on a flower, stretch out its graceful leg, taste the flower nectar: “tasty or tasteless,” and if it unfolds its coiled proboscis, it means it’s delicious, it will suck and fly away. Hawkmoths don’t do this, although they are also butterflies and also love to feast to their heart’s content. They are very large, heavy, and not every flower can withstand such heavyweights. That's why they feed in a special way. They hover in flight over a flower, quickly, quickly, like hummingbirds, they work their wings, put their proboscis inside the flowers, suck out the nectar and, flying from flower to flower, sway from side to side, like drunk people. So they feast all night long, pollinating plants along the way, until they get tired and become completely heavy. That is why they are named accordingly as perceptive people.
In the tropics, hawkmoths were considered a cross between butterflies and the smallest birds, hummingbirds, for their size, flight pattern and feeding style, and the California Indians were convinced that hummingbirds were born from these large, fluffy butterflies. The oleander hawk moth is also not the smallest in size. The wingspan is 9-11 cm. The appearance is far from ordinary, exotically catchy. The forewings are narrow, greenish and olive-pink, painted with dark purple stripes and light eyes at their bases.
Green Way
Modern tourists who have visited many countries of the world now pay attention to one important feature of Crimea, which was previously ignored in guidebooks: Crimea is unusually safe . For example, one of my acquaintances, a diving instructor from the USA, who had traveled to all the famous diving coasts, was extremely surprised that in the evening on the Koktebel beach a huge number of people were sitting by the water and swimming. In tropical seas, rescue services escort vacationers away from the water, as shark attacks are possible. In addition, all sorts of poisonous creatures crawl onto the beach to look for scraps. There is actually not a single deadly creature in Crimea. Health problems can only arise due to self-creation of dangerous situations. However, now in order:
Dangerous plants
Mindlessly chewing a blade of grass, rubbing a leaf between your fingers, inhaling the aroma (evergreen magnolia flowers), tasting bright, appetizing fruits (yew berry), if you don’t know exactly what it is - all this can end very badly.
As an example, here are just a few situations:
magnolia - huge and beautiful flowers of the evergreen magnolia, quite common in south coast parks, amaze the imagination. The desire to break off decorative park trees cannot be called natural, but still the temptation to put a fragrant flower on the bedside table is very great, and the payback is just as great - a severe headache in the morning. The same effect is given by many beautifully flowering plants with a strong aroma, which is not at all intended for indoors;
yew berry - the bright red berry (or rather, the juicy pericarp of the cone) of the yew berry looks attractive and follows the example of birds that eat it with pleasure, and you may express a desire to try it. The pulp itself has a sweetish, somewhat soapy taste, but the fruit to which it is literally glued is extremely poisonous (like all parts of the yew tree from roots to needles) - accidentally biting a cone can cost your life. All parts of boxwood, oleander, and lily of the valley are also poisonous;
dogwood (leaves) - dogwood leaves have fine pubescence and when harvesting fruits and disturbing plants, these light, invisible needles are torn off from the leaves, which leads to noticeable and painful irritation of the skin. When collecting dogwood, you need to wear solid clothing; immediately wash your face, hands and neck thoroughly with running water. It’s not worth it to just climb and jump on dogwood branches.
In the mountains , the ash tree, or burning bush (a short plant with leaves resembling ash and studded with glands that secrete essential oil), is dangerous. Ash tree is a plant from the Rutaceae family, a relative of citrus fruits, it blooms unusually spectacularly: graceful flowers with purple separate petals in dark stripes-veins and with long stamens form elegant and luxurious candles. The five-lobed boxes also look tempting. However, the cloud of ethereal vapor surrounding the plant causes severe burns. Ethereal vapors can ignite from the presence of fire, which, however, will not harm the burning bush, but it is better for people to stay away from it.
These are just a few sources of trouble and even real danger for those who are used to cutting off everything. If you are deprived of this bad habit and can protect your children from it, your holiday will be calmer. Crimean forests are very rich in fruits and berries, nuts and medicinal herbs, but they require caution, especially if you are traveling with children. First of all, you should not try unfamiliar fruits, pick flowers and leaves of exotic plants, and especially leave them in vases indoors. Such botanical “research” can result in poisoning, burns, headaches, and various allergic reactions.
The strong-smelling plants of Crimean parks can pose a big problem for people prone to allergies . On the other hand, there is nothing better than Crimean air for people suffering from asthma and other diseases caused by prolonged stay in industrial centers. In this case, I cannot give precise advice: I need recommendations from the attending physician and a little experience of traveling in different areas of Crimea. For asthmatics and allergy sufferers, a serious problem can be the time of mass flowering of poplars - poplar fluff flies in the Crimea in June. This is a steppe zone and the cities of the Foothills; on the southern coast of Crimea and in Sevastopol this problem does not exist.
Abrosia pollifolia has become a serious problem for people with allergies . This plant spread from the USA through Western Europe and is now spreading like a real plague in the agricultural regions of Ukraine, as well as on abandoned lands of quarries, waste heaps and industrial sites.
“Abrosia pollen is the cause of many allergic diseases, which are collectively called “polinosis” from the English word pollen - dust. These diseases are also called hay fever, pollen allergy, and hay asthma.
The role of ragweed in the occurrence of diseases was first established in the USA more than 100 years ago. In this country alone, 7-12 million people suffer from ragweed polynosis every year. The dominant manifestation of the disease is allergic inflammation of the eyes and nose. The person feels a slight itching in the nose and has bouts of sneezing. These first signs can cause more severe symptoms (fever, rhinitis, conjunctevitis, bronchial asthma).”
Dangerous animals
Crimean animals are quite harmless. We do not have bears, wolves, lynxes, etc., but encounters with foxes, stray dogs and cats that may suffer from rabies are not excluded. Just in case, you need to stay away from them in the forest. A wild boar poses a serious danger if it has been disturbed and enraged by something - here, without wasting time, you need to climb the nearest tree. In the Crimean mountain forests, you can quite often find a sow of a clearly “cultured” appearance with colorful semi-wild piglets. This whole gang looks very nice and friendly. Piglets are very curious, but under no circumstances should you come close to them or scare them. A mother pig, even a domestic one, becomes very fierce and ruthless if she thinks that you are threatening the piglets. The impact of her snout will be enough for several serious fractures of the legs and hip-femoral joints - the weight of several hundred kilograms plus the speed provide enormous impact force. If the wild pig is dark in color, the danger of approaching the piglets is even higher. There are no poisonous snakes in the Crimean forests, but poisonous insects , although rare, are found throughout the peninsula. People are not the object of their hunting, but if you are nevertheless bitten by a tarantula , a scorpion or something similar, apply a bandage soaked in a strong solution of potassium permanganate to the wound; half a glass of a slightly pink solution of potassium permanganate is taken orally. Before the doctor arrives, you need to provide the victim with rest, warmth, and plenty of fluids.
Separately, I would like to write here about Crimean snakes and reptiles in general (reptiles). We ask you very much - take care of these animals! Crimean lizards, geckos, snakes, snakes, yellow-bellies are not only safe and harmless, they are also defenseless. Catching them is not particularly valiant, but you should not squeeze them and overwork them with your annoying curiosity.
The steppe viper is the only poisonous snake in Crimea and is very rare. She can bite only if you somehow catch her on purpose and expose her. Or, for example, if you stick your nose into a haystack in the steppe. Such cases of bites in the 19th century were quite frequent and were treated with special spells among Christians, and among Muslims with ritual meditations of Sufis. However, closer to reality, if a “special benefit” from a viper bite happens, then the same potassium permanganate inside and outside and call a doctor.
In recent years, the forest tick , which also carries encephalitis . The dangerous period in Crimea is only May and June, only windless days and only places of mass livestock grazing.
Nevertheless, during mountain hikes and even after a walk in the park in May-June (in Crimean conditions), children are completely examined every two hours. Because children's skin is thinner, ticks primarily attack children. You need to examine the folds of the skin very carefully:
- behind the ears
- in the elbow bend
- the perineum very carefully and everywhere, especially if the child is wearing shorts or, especially, undressed in the forest or meadow
- under the knee in the bend
For prevention, if it is not possible for another person to examine the body, be sure to take a shower with a gel after a walk in the forest or meadow, or in the park during the dangerous period (May-June), which creates a moisturizing, nourishing film (fat) on the body and After a shower, coat your entire body with nourishing cream (it won’t hurt). In Crimea, it is ideal to completely coat yourself with blue clay or black healing mud (only in this case, do not touch the heart area - unnecessary excitement). Mud peel is a reliable pig method against any parasites on the skin.
If you find an attached tick, in order to deprive it of air, you need to cover the tick with a thick cream or oil and pull it out with a loop made around its cephalothorax from a regular thread. You can also gently unscrew the tick using your fingernails, always rotating it in one direction. The tick must be placed in a matchbox or a small bag and urgently delivered to the nearest sanitary-epidemiological station (Crimean Republican SES +38 0652 27-33-12 ).
Wild bees or wasps (a probable situation when the nest is disturbed due to swaying trees, breaking off large branches) with their bites, if there are several of them, lead to a very painful condition. First aid consists of removing the stings (if bees left them), disinfecting the wound and applying an alcohol compress to it. The effect of poisoning from the bite of poisonous insects is reduced by ingesting ephedrine.
When bitten by blood-sucking insects, do not scratch the bite sites. A cotton swab soaked in alcohol or cologne, as well as a small amount of Vietnamese Golden Star balm, can help. But in places where mosquitoes , for example on the Azov coast, it is better to use repellents. Mosquitoes along the Azov coast and on the beaches of Eastern Crimea (for example, in Koktebel, Sudak) appear in clouds after sunset in calm weather. Any cologne or alcoholic drink or any strong-smelling product is enough to create a repellent effect, but it is better to immediately stock up on special repellents. They are sold everywhere on the coast. For children, it is necessary to select special products with hygiene certificates for a certain age (up to 5, up to 10 years, etc.). The truly terrible situation with mosquitoes in Crimea is only in the middle part of the Arabat Spit. There are so few people there and so many mosquitoes that mosquitoes fly even during the day and pay little attention to repellents. One of my friends claimed that mosquitoes even dived into the water after him to drink his English blood.
The situation with malaria and malarial mosquitoes in Crimea today is of interest only for scientific research. The main danger in this regard is represented by foreign students, tourists from abroad and guest workers from Central Asia.
The so-called disturbing insects - midges, mayflies, mosquitoes - can ruin your sleep and poison your trip even without bites. In order to get rid of them, you can use repellents - repellent chemicals, but this is only as a last resort and not for long: if this “chemistry” is harmful to our smallest “brothers,” then it is not good for our health. Therefore, for rest and overnight stay, choose sunny, wind-blown clearings, hillocks, and forest edges. Use small tents with nets on the windows, as well as gauze canopies and capes. If a disturbing mosquito gets into the ear, the victim is placed on his side and a little warm water is poured into his ear canal. After a minute, he turns over to the other side and lies for a while until the foreign body comes out along with the water. If the desired result is not achieved, you should stop doing it yourself and consult a doctor. Often a small bug can hit the eye. Under no circumstances should you rub your eyes. First, you need to blink well and “shed a tear” so that it carries the foreign body into the corner of the eye to the sclera. If a tear does not help, then first examine the lower eyelid, pulling its edge down. The victim should look up. To examine the mucous membrane of the upper eyelid, the victim is asked to look down, the skin of the eyelid is pulled down and everted. The speck is removed with a damp cotton swab, preferably soaked in a solution of boric acid. If the speck cannot be removed, qualified medical assistance is needed.
There are no serious dangers at sea The Black Sea katran shark, for example, is a small, harmless fish. Only a poisonous fish, the stingray (sea cat), can pose a problem if you step on it, which is only possible in places where people are extremely rare. Black Sea jellyfish secrete poisonous mucus, which is useful, for example, for rheumatism and generally stimulates the immune system, but if the mucus gets into the eyes, they must be immediately rinsed with fresh water. Children should not be allowed to throw jellyfish; the remaining mucus on the fingers can then get into the delicate parts of the body and cause a burning sensation. In this case, you also need to urgently rinse with water and, if possible, soothe the irritation with any fatty cream, preferably baby or hand cream.
The telephone number of the Unified Rescue Service (and through it the operator will connect you with the telephone number of an ambulance or another service) is 112 in all cities and towns, free of charge, also from a mobile phone.
