...as they all support the eco-system in nature.
So, when you see an "ugly" bug, please don't squash it.
But I have to say that we have some pet hates for cockroaches and mosquitoes. Thankfully, we don't have many insects in our garden, as we protect our plants with soap solutions. Some farmers regard insects as pests, as they damage their crops, but we try our best to keep our garden organic and not to use pesticides. Some say that if the human body has all the correct nutrients and is healthy, when germs come they are able to fight them off. The same goes for plants. If the plants are healthy and have been nourished correctly, they can also ward off pests, insects, and diseases.
This is a Twig Wilter (Anoplocnemis).
Look how the wilter's colors match the plant after we put it down.
Insects play significant roles in the ecology of the world due to their vast diversity of form, function, and lifestyle. They are the major contributor to biodiversity in most habitats, except in the sea, they play a variety of important ecological roles in the many functions of an ecosystem. In the case of nutrient recycling, insects contribute to this vital function by degrading or consuming leaf litter, wood, carrion and dung, and by dispersal of fungi. Insects form an important part of the food chain, especially for entomophagous vertebrates such as many mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles.
Insects play a critical role in maintaining community structure and composition; in the case of animals through diseases transmission, predation and parasitism, and in plants through phytophagy and plant propagation through pollination and seed dispersal. From an anthropocentric point of view, insects compete with humans; they consume as much as 10% of the food produced by man and infect one in six humans with a pathogen.
Here below is something different.
A baby Black Nest Chafer (Diplognatha gagates).
We call them the wasp assassins, as they destroy the wasp nests. Can you believe that some of the chafer species' larvae nest in the dung of some termites.
And again something else.
My wife ladles the gardens with old leaves and dead plant material in order for it to not only protect the water from evaporating from the soil in the African sun, but also to increase the quality of the soil. These little millipedes eat the dead leaves, and that prevents them from eating any of our plants. They have more than enough food to eat. However, snails were a real problem as they usually eat the leaves of our plants. But we have found a solution for them, as we simply spray the plants with a soap solution.
This is an Arthropod, a little Millipede of the class Diplopoda.
Of course, insects can also be beautiful.
The last photos are of insects that are pollinators, meaning that they go from flower to flower to collect plant pollen, and in the same way they stimulate the plant growth.
Spring season here and now the Acraea butterflies are starting to appear.
This is a male Garden Acraea (Acraea horta).
And finally we have a Nomad Dropwing dragonfly (Sympetrum fonscolombii)
A day ago, I saw some strange things as many birds of different species were gathering at a spot in nature, and the birds were wildly flying around catching something. So, I went to investigate, and guess what? I saw several flying ants coming out of their nests. Needless to say, the birds were all gorging on them.
I made a video of it and took many photos, and if you are interested then you will soon see a post that I will do on it.
But for now, this is all folks.
I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the story.
Photos by Zac Smith. All-Rights-Reserved.
Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.
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