How do you know rain is coming? Here are signs.

Insects as Nature's Emissaries

How do you know rain is coming? Here are signs. 

Dr Abe V Rotor 

Hovering dragonflies indicates a coming rain.

Old folks can tell if it’s going to rain early or late in the day just by observing the dragonflies. Dragonflies or tutubing kalabaw (Odonata) come in horde and hover over our heads in the meadow, farms, football field, or any place where they swoop upon their prey – small insects such as leafhoppers, gnats and midges (gamugamu) that escape from their abode to find shelter elsewhere. But how do they sense an oncoming rain? These insects are endowed with sensitive antennae and tactile body hairs, and can detect the changes of temperature and relative humidity that characterize an approaching rain.

The more dragonflies hovering, and the closer they get to the ground, the heavier is the coming rain, the old folks warn. By the way, it is the dragonfly’s predatory habit that has earned them a place in the heart of farmers.   

 Ants on the move means that a strong rain, if not a typhoon, is coming. Cockroaches come out of their abode and seek for shelter outside.

The biological clock of these creatures responds to invisible signals, which comprise decreased atmospheric pressure, high relative humidity and air temperature. Their sensitive antennae and tactile hairs covering their body pick these up these changes of the environment. Thus we find ants in exodus, they move as a colony carrying their eggs and 

young indoors. Cockroaches become unusually active, flying about in frenzy, in search for a new place. There is a common message, that is, to escape to safer ground, an archetype ingrained in their genes passed on to them by their ancestors through evolution.       

  Common dragonfly (Order Odonata); fire ants (Solenopsis geminata);      American cockroach (Periplaneta americana)