100 DAYS OF STEEM: The Diary Game: Studying Microbiology, The Phenomenon of Insects

This insect was found at the time of weeding my farm, as I reported in my #1 Diary Game of doing combine farming with my friend.

Well, there are natural phenomenon that occur on our environment, aside our daily work for money, feeding and other things, we must also find time to study all these natural things around us.

Entomology under microbiology has been my pleasure of learning to add to my career course, especially studying the insects morphology, their function in ecology and feeding habits. Something we disregard some of these insects especially you have less knowledge about their benefit in their ecology. But the fact that some of these insects cause damage to some of these primary producers and prey on their similar organisms, they have some important roles to play. In most cases, apart from the damages the cause to crops; they barrow holes into the soil for aeration to take place. They die and mix with the soil to improve soil fertility.

This insect belong to the family's "red and black bugs." Actually they come in different forms in terms of their distinct colours, shape and functions. Most of them prove to be stubborn damaging crops and other relevant ecological plants. Something like mealybugs and stunning cotton which seriously damage, hibiscus, orange, cocoa and cotton. This variety is somehow cool, to cause little destructions.

Basically the morphological mouth parts also determine the kind of damage these insects will cause. The piercing/ boring and sucking insects puncher the stem of the crops, damage the sap and internal structure. In this case, those insects have long and strong proboscis to easily pierce through the stems. In that case, the crops would have weak stem to stand the soil. That's why army worms invade in maize farm and damage the shoot system. The chewing insects like these red and black bugs have short mouth parts to chew some of the leaves of okro, cassava, maize and garden eggs. All these insect could cause a great havoc to plants.

There are more things to learn from this red and black bug. It's really beautiful to see it color, from red thorax, red jointed pair of legs and with black hard covered wings. It has long beautiful pairs of antennae that enable it to detect scent. The unique feature to know is the compound eyes in which most insects possess. We can see all the 3 main divisions of this insect; the abdomen, thorax and the head. In it's ecology it uses the wings to escape pressure from other large animals which could cause threat to them. The hard wings cover serve scales to protect themselves from physical injuries.

The video of this red and black bug running in my farm. It's lovely to make just 30s video to share here these Insects behave.

The environment recently is becoming more unfriendly to the lives of some of these insects. Though they are not well fixed into the category of "endangered species." But their lives could become more vunerable as most are relegated to the background, tagging them to cause damage to crops. Very soon, their stay are decaying with time because of a lot of chemicals we have manufactured to kill the "pests family." Those insecticide, acaricides, pesticides like the powerful DDT and other new brands are subsiding their presences as well as their benefits. But do we even consider the side effects of their eradication from the surface of the Earth? If most of them die untarget, what would be the result in our future. A situation where soil fertility would be lost and reduction of aeration as a result of lack of barrowing animals.

Thanks for finding time to share with me here as we study some interesting lives of insects.