{"id":50751,"date":"2025-06-18T13:37:03","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T08:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=50751"},"modified":"2025-06-18T14:46:34","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T09:16:34","slug":"lac-insect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/lac-insect\/","title":{"rendered":"Lac Insect"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Lac Insect Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a new study, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have unravelled the mystery behind how the lac insect produces laccaic acid that is used to make lac pigment.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Lac Insect<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>hemimetabolous<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> i.e. it undergoes <\/span><b>gradual metamorphosis.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The main stages of lac insect life <\/span><b>cycle are egg, nymph instars, pupa and adult<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The lac insects show an <\/span><b>ovoviviparous reproduction<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The life cycle is completed in about six months.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lac insects <\/span><b>live in cavities or cells<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> made in the resin or lac secreted by them on their host plant.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The lac insect <\/span><b>grows on certain trees<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (like the flame of the forest), drinks its sugary sap, and secretes a <\/span><b>sticky resin called shellac.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It also makes a <\/span><b>bright red<\/b> <b>compound called laccaic acid<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which is used to make the pigment.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In India, mainly there are <\/span><b>two distinct strains of Lac<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> insect: <\/span><b>kusumi and rangeeni.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lac insects <\/span><b>have six genera<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from which only <\/span><b>five can secrete lac<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, but commercial lac can be secreted by only one, i.e. Laccifer.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The commonest and most widely occurring species of lac insect in India is <\/span><b>Laccifer lacca<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Distribution:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The lac insects are distributed in <\/span><b>South-East Asian countries<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> like India, Thailand, Malaya, Lao Myanmar, and Yuan province of China.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Among these countries <\/span><b>India and Thailand<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are the <\/span><b>main lacs producing areas in the world<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>In India<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> over 90% of lac produced comes from the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Eastern Maharashtra and northern Orissa.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Uses of Lac pigment:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The lac pigment is a prized commodity used in <\/span><b>food colouring, textiles, dyes, handicrafts, and folk art.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>Highlights of the Research<\/b><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researchers have found that the <\/span><b>colourful pigment extracted<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from the lac insect may actually be produced by a <\/span><b>symbiotic yeast-like organism living inside the insect<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the key ingredients required for laccaic acid synthesis is an <\/span><b>amino acid called tyrosine<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which the <\/span><b>insect cannot make on its own<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or source from the tree sap.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Such missing ingredients are usually supplied by <\/span><b>symbiotic bacteria<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or fungi that live inside insect bodies and secrete these molecules in exchange for housing.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The fungus is actually <\/span><b>inside the insect\u2019s oocyte<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (egg cell).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The fungus floats around in the <\/span><b>insect\u2019s haemolymph<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 the equivalent of animal blood \u2014 and as soon as the oocyte matures, it latches on to it and enters the oocyte, and gets transmitted to the offspring that emerges from the oocyte.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source:<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/karnataka\/iisc-researchers-unravel-the-mystery-behind-how-lac-insect-produces-pigment\/article69704152.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><b>TH<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The lac insect is hemimetabolous, meaning it undergoes gradual metamorphosis with no distinct pupal stage in its life cycle. Read more about Lac Insect, Scientific Name, Distribution, Uses, Latest News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":50803,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[908,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-50751","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-lac-insect","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}