Lac Insect : 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.
- Researchers have found that the colourful pigment extracted from the lac insect may actually be produced by a symbiotic yeast-like organism living inside the insect.
- One of the key ingredients required for laccaic acid synthesis is an amino acid called tyrosine, which the insect cannot make on its own or source from the tree sap.
- Such missing ingredients are usually supplied by symbiotic bacteria or fungi that live inside insect bodies and secrete these molecules in exchange for housing.
- The fungus is actually inside the insect’s oocyte (egg cell).
- The fungus floats around in the insect’s haemolymph — the equivalent of animal blood — 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.
Lac Insect:
- It is hemimetabolouse. it undergoes gradual metamorphosis.
- The main stages of lac insect life cycle are egg, nymph instars, pupa and adult.
- The lac insects show an ovoviviparous reproduction.
- The life cycle is completed in about six months.
- Lac insects live in cavities or cells made in the resin or lac secreted by them on their host plant.
- The lac insect grows on certain trees (like the flame of the forest), drinks its sugary sap, and secretes a sticky resin called shellac.
- It also makes a bright red compound called laccaic acid, which is used to make the pigment.
- In India, mainly there are two distinct strains of Lac insect: kusumi and rangeeni.
- Lac insects have six genera from which only five can secrete lac, but commercial lac can be secreted by only one, i.e. Laccifer.
- The commonest and most widely occurring species of lac insect in India is Laccifer lacca
- The lac insects are distributed in South-East Asian countries like India, Thailand, Malaya, Lao Myanmar, and Yuan province of China.
