ENTOMOLOGY: Science about Insects Volume 1 - Insect World in the Garden

ENTOMOLOGY: Science about Insects, Volume 1 

Insect World in the Garden

Living with Nature Center

San Vicente, Ilocos Sur, Philippines 

  Dr Abe V Rotor

Entomologist and Professor UST, DLSU-D, SPUQC, UPHSD

                                       [avrotor.blogspot.com]

Artistic representation of a damsel fly, Museum of Natural History,

Mt Makiling Botanical Garden, UPLB Laguna

Part 1 - The Garden - Microcosm of the Insect World

Part 2 - Insects: Our Allies and Foes 

Part 3 - Make your Backyard a Research Laboratory of Insects

Part 4 - Ichabod: My Preying Mantis Pet

Part 5 - Beware of the Higad! (Budo-budo Ilk.)

Part 6- The Versatile Beetle - Source of Delightful Ideas

Part 7 - Strange World of the Swallowtail Butterfly

Part 8 - The Enigmatic Antlion  

Part 1 - The Garden - Microcosm of the Insect World

                                                              Dr Abe V Rotor

Entomology (study of insects) is best studied in the field in order to gain on-site and hands-on experience. A school garden, such as the UST Botanical Garden Manila serves the purpose for regular field work. Ideally, schools with sprawling campuses are ideal. Ateneo de Manila University for one, and University of the Philippines Diliman, and of course, UP Los Banos in Laguna. 

Daddy-long-legs, relative of the mosquito, quakes continuously when at rest by swaying its body back and forth in all directions, causing blurred view to a would-be attacker, and mesmerizing a potential prey. In the open, such optical illusion is enhanced by the shadow of the moving organism. Note the hind pair of wings reduced into halteres or balancer, characteristic of Dipterans. There is another kind of daddy-long-legs which belongs to Arachnida.

With increasing population, traffic and commerce all around a community, there is one place, a garden, that offers a wildlife sanctuary, specially insects. Here they live freely in the trees and shrubs, on annuals, inside the greenhouses, around the ponds, in loamy soil, and in the shade of buildings, and even visit homes seeking a suitable abode.

I have the feeling that of all animals, insects are the most adapted to the varied aspects of human activities, from the sound of hurrying feet to soft echoes of prayer and hymns – and loud music. When there are humans around, insects feed on morsels, paper and crayons, drink on fruit juices and beer. They aestivate in flower pots and boxes to tide with the harsh summer months. Or hibernate when the cold Siberian High comes. I think Pavlov’s conditioned learning works with insects as well.

Interestingly, as an entomologist, I have been monitoring the insects in some gardens, listing down a good number of species that include those not readily found elsewhere. These include a giant click beetle, a rhinoceros beetle with horns resembling a triceratops, Ficus pollinating wasp, leaf-curling thrips of ikmo, long horned grasshoppers, sulfur and Papilio butterflies.

Well, it is a fact that there is no escape from insects - good or bad ones. In terms of species, there are 7 insects out of 10 animal organisms of earth. Insects comprise 800,000 kinds and scientists estimate that their kin - lobster shrimps, spiders, ticks, centipedes, millipedes and scorpions if these were to be added, the phylum to which they all belongs, Phylum Arthropoda, would comprise 80 percent of all animals organisms. To compare, plants make up only one-half million species.

What secrets have insects in dominating the animal world, and surpassing the geologic history of dinosaurs, fishes, mammals and even some mollusks?

Well look at the ants, termites, and bees, the so-called social insects. Their caste system is so intact and strict that is was long regarded as a model of man’s quest for a perfect society. It inspired the building of highly autocratic empires like Egyptian and Roman Empires, and the monarchial Aztecs,       Inca and Mayan civilizations.

Antlion's traps. The predatory larva of this Neuropteran (Dendroleon obsoletum) lies buried at the bottom of the pit waiting for an unwary ant to fall and become its meal. The adult resembles the damselfly.

Take the case of the butterflies and moths. Their active time is not only well defined - diurnal or nocturnal, but their food is highly specific to a plant or group of plants and their parts. Their life cycles allow either accelerated or suspended metamorphosis depending on the prevailing conditions of the environment, a feat no other animal can do more efficiently.

In an outdoor lecture around a garden pond, I explained  the bizarre life of the dragonfly, once a contemporary of the dinosaur. Its young called nymph is a fearful hunter in water as the adult is in air. Apparently this is mainly  the reason on how it got its legendary name. I showed our visitors mainly students about the weapons of insects: the preying mantis carries a pair of ax-and-vise, a bee brandishes a poisonous dagger, while a tussock moth is cloaked with stinging barbs, a stink bug sprays corrosive acid on eyes or skin. The weevil has an auger snout, the grasshopper grins with shear-like mandibles, and the mosquito tucks in a long, contaminated needle.

We examined a beetle. Our thought brought us to the medieval age. A knight in full battle gear! Chitin, which makes up its armor called exoskeleton, has not been successfully copied in the laboratory. So with the light of the firefly, the most efficient of all lights on earth.

Wait until you hear this! Aphids, scale insects and some dipterans, are capable of paedogenesis, that is, the ability of insects to produce young even before reaching maturity!

Numbers, numbers, numbers. This is the secret of survival and dominance in the biological world. King Solomon is wise indeed in halting his army so that another army - an army of ants can pass. Killer ants and killer bees destroy anything that impedes their passage, including livestock - and human.

Invisibility is another key to insect survival and dominance. Have you examined the inside of leaf galls in santol, Ficus and ikmo? Well, you need a microscope to see the culprit - thrips or red mites. I demonstrated to guests how insects, being very small, can ride on the wind and current, find easy shelter, and are less subjected to injury when they fall. Also, insects require relatively less energy than bigger organisms do. All of these contribute to their persistence and worldwide distribution. Insects surely are among the ultimate survivors of a disaster.

In an article I wrote, A Night of Music in a Garden I described Nature’s musicians, the cricket and the katydid. While their sounds are music to many of us they are totally coded sounds similar to our communications. 

A Walking Stick, a perfect example of mimicry.

Cicadas, beetles, grasshopper, have their own “languages”, and in the case of termites and bees, their language is in the form of chemical signals known as pheromones. It is from them that we are learning pheromones in humans.

Without insects, we are certain to miss our sweetest sugar which is honey, the finest fabric which is silk, the mysterious fig (Smyrna fig) which is an exotic fruit. We would be having less and less of luscious fruits, succulent vegetables, the reddest dye, unique flavor in cheese, and most likely we will not have enough food to eat because insects are the chief pollinators, and main food of fishes and other animals. They are major links in the food chains and food webs, the columns of a biological Parthenon.

Without insects, the earth would be littered with dead bodies of plants and animals. Insects are the co-workers of decomposition with bacteria and fungi as they prepare for the life of the next generation by converting dead tissues into organic materials and ultimately into their inorganic forms. Together they help bridge the living and the non-living world.

                                                         Green Bug

A garden without bees and butterflies mirrors a scenario of the biblical fall. And if the other creatures in that garden strayed away from its beautiful premises as our first forebears began their wandering, they too, must have learned the true values of life, which they share to us today.

Beautiful is the verse from A Gnat and a Bee, an Aesop fables. To wit:

“The wretch who works not for his daily bread,

Sighs and complains, but ought not to be fed.

Think, when you see stout beggars on their stand,

The lazy are the locusts of the land.”

In The Ant and the Grasshopper, Aesop, acting like a father with a rod in hand, warns. He was referring to the happy-go-lucky grasshopper.

“Oh now, while health and vigour still remain,

Toil, toil, my lad, to purchase honest again!

Shun idleness! Shun pleasure’s tempting snare!

A youth of rebels breeds age of care.”

Ecologically insects are the barometer of the kind of environment we live in. A pristine environment attracts beneficial insects, while a spoilt one breeds pests and diseases

. 

I have yet to see a firefly in a city garden. I remember an article in Renato Constantino’s series of publications, Issues Without Tears. Its title is, You don’t See Fireflies Anymore, a prophesy of doom, a second to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.

Maybe. But I have not lost hope. Someday, a flicker in the night may yet come from a firefly and not from a car or cigarette - if only others will share with me the same optimism. ~

Ficus pseudopalma and its exclusive wasp pollinator, a classical example of co-evolution. Only this species of wasp can pollinate and subsequently fertilize the introverted flower of this fig plant. Wasp is magnified 20x under a stereo microscope.~

Part 2 - Insects – Our Allies and Foes

Dr A V Rotor

Contrary to what many people think, most insects are extremely useful to mankind and the environment. Our world could not be any better without insects.

Without them, we would not have honey and silk, insect-pollinated fruits and vegetables, fish which feed on them, music they create on a warm summer night. Nor can we see the Monarch butterfly that meets us in the garden at sunrise in springtime.

On the other hand, we detest the presence of their destructive kin: the disease-spreading cockroach, ticks that spoil a dog’s lovely coat, caterpillars that defoliate our favorite trees, or simply the buzzing of a pesky mosquito that interrupts our prayers or good rest.

If these negative traits are not enough for us to take up arms against these pests, realize that the most ferocious animal on earth is not the lion or rhino, but the mosquito. Disease-carrying mosquitoes have caused, through the millennia, death and suffering to mankind. It is estimated that deaths due to mosquitoes alone surpasses that which all wars in history have caused. The mosquito’s most prominent victim, Alexander the Great, died of malaria at a young age on the banks of the Tigris-Euphrates Rivers, after a conquest that would have formed the biggest empire in the world.

So here are strategies of war against our insect enemies.

1. Natural Resistance

There is no substitute for natural resistance (those carried by the genes) in combating the pest. Where do these genes come from?

Even before scientists came to the conclusion that resistance (or susceptibility) is hereditary, farmers already adopted selectivity in plant breeding and animal husbandry, as the foundation of the first green revolution .

Evolution brought desirable genes together in a species. “Survival of the fittest,” Darwin’s general formula is the gradual pooling of these genes through time. It also explains why varieties and breeds native to a place are more resistant compared to their non-indigenous counterparts. Wittingly or not, man has caused the elimination of resistance genes. By making economically advantageous agricultural decision, man unwittingly has eliminated seemingly unimportant genetic characteristics. Many of the latter characteristics are carried by indigenous species.

In order to gain from this knowledge, one must look into the adoption of these two measures.

1. Choose plants and animals that are genetically adapted to the place. They have the natural resistance to pests and diseases, and can withstand unfavorable conditions prevailing in the area.

2. Maintain physiologic (involving healthy or normal functioning) resistance by enhancing soil nutrients and proper cultural practices. Healthy plants have less pest and disease problems. The same is true with animals. This leads us to the next practical technology.

2. Proper Cultural Practices

It is not only the season’s calendar that farmers plant or harvest their fields at the same. They have learned that by working collectively with the seasons, crop loss due to pest and diseases is minimized, since the damage they cause is thinly spread over larger area.

The fields are fallowed in the summer, giving the land time to “rest.” During this time the insect life cycle is severed and the buildup of its population is remotely possible. This practice is revived through cooperative farming, integrated with communal irrigation, mechanization, and collective marketing to provide economies of scale.

A key to control pests is to eliminate their breeding places. This is done by uprooting infected plants, or pruning affected parts, then burning them. To attract the potential pests, farmers plant trap crops ahead of planting time. The trap crop is then rouged and burned to eliminate the threat to the oncoming crop. Weeds need to be eliminated since they serve as alternate hosts.

3. Biological Control

As unsightly as cobwebs are, do not remove them. Destroying them will take away natural insect traps built by spiders. Inside warehouses, spiders prey on weevils and moths that destroy grains and other commodities. Those webs also trap pesky mosquitoes and flies at home. No echolocation device can avoid the fine web, making it an indigenous trapping devise, indeed.

On plants, the preying mantis snatches its victim with one deadly grasp. The spotted ladybug overruns a colony of aphids and has its fill, unless the red ants guarding the aphids come to the rescue. A nest of hantik ants up in the tree is an army of thousands. They swarm on intruders and large preys like caterpillars.

Under the microscope one can examine the unsuspecting Trichogramma. Mass production and dispersal of this parasitic wasp has benefited sugar and corn planters since its discovery in the 1950s. The University of the Philippines at Los Baños is mass-producing the parasite for dispersal in corn and sugarcane fields throughout the Philippines.

Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt, has become the most popular pathogens attacking Lepidopterous pests which include rice stem borers and corn borers. When the spores are applied as materials for inoculation, Bt can cause widespread pests elimination on the field.

4. Practical Pest Control at Home

Here are pest control techniques you can adopt at home.

1. To control furniture weevil and moths which destroy the felt and piano wood, place a teabag of well-dried and uncrushed black pepper in the piano chamber near the pedals. Paminta is a good repellant and has a pleasant smell.

2. Coconut trees whose shoots are destroyed by rhinoceros beetle (Oryctis rhinoceros) can be saved with ordinary sand. If the trees are low, sprinkle sand onto the leaf axils (angle between the leaf and axis from which it arises). Sand contains silica that penetrates the beetle’s conjunctiva, the soft part of the body where hard chitinous plates (hard outer membrane) are joined.

3. To control bean weevil (Callosobruchus maculatus), an insect that destroys stored beans, especially mungo), mix a little ash of rice hull (ipa’) and spread it in a way that sand kills the rhinoceros beetle.

4. To get rid of nematodes (microscopic elongated, cylindrical worms) in the soil, incorporate chopped or ground exoskeleton (skin) of shrimps into the soil, preferably mixing it with compost. Chitinase is formed which dissolves the cover of the egg and the body of the nematode. Use poultry dropping to reduce nematode population in farms and gardens.

5. To control the cucurbit (plants of the gourd family) fruit fly (Dacus cucurbitae), wrap the newly formed fruits of ampalaya and cucumber with paper bag. Bagging is also practiced on mango fruits. For ampalaya use newspaper (1/8 of the broadsheet) or used paper, bond size. Roll the paper into two inches in diameter and insert the young fruit, folding the top then stapling. Bagged fruits are clean, smooth and light green. Export quality mangoes were individually bagged on the tree.

6. To keep termites away from mud-plastered walls, incorporate termite soil (anthill or punso). To discourage goats from nibbling the trunk of trees, paint the base and trunk with manure slurry, preferably their own.

7. Raise ducks to eat snail pest (golden kuhol) on the farm. Chicken and birds are natural insect predators.

8. An extra large size mosquito net can be made into a mini greenhouse. Underneath, you can raise vegetables without spraying. You can conduct your own experiments such as studying the life cycle of butterflies.

9. Plants with repellant properties can be planted around the garden. Examples of these are lantana (Lantana camara), chrysanthemum, neem tree, eucalyptus, madre de cacao (Gliricida sepium), garlic, onions, and kinchai (Allium tuberosum).

10. To scare birds that compete for feeds in poultry houses, recycle old balls, plastic containers, styro and the like, by painting them with two large scary eyes (like those of owls). This is the reason why butterfly wings have “eyes” on them to scare away would-be predators. Hang these modern scarecrows in areas frequented by birds. To scare off birds in the field, dress up used mannequins. In some cases, the mannequin may be more effective than the T-scarecrow. Discarded cassette tape ribbon tied along the field borders scares maya and possibly other pests.

5. Insects as Food

One practical means of insect control is by harvesting them for food. This practice is not only confined among primitive societies but is still one of the most practical means of controlling insects. Anyone who has tasted kamaro’ (sautéed mole cricket – Gryllotalpa africana) would tell you it is as tasty as shrimps, lobsters or other crustaceans. After all, insects and shrimps belong to the same phylum – Arthropoda.

Locusts may destroy crops but, in a way, bring food to its victims. During a swarm, locust is harvested by the sacks and sold for food and animal feeds. The same goes for gamu-gamu (winged termites – Macrotermes) at the onset of the rainy season, or the salagubang (Leucopolis irrorata), another insect delicacy. Other food insects are the grubs of kapok beetle locally called u-ok, eggs and larvae of hantik (green tree ant), larvae of honeybee and cheese maggots.

When is a pest a pest?

When we see an insect, instinct tells us to kill it. We should not. A caterpillar is a plant eater, but the beautiful butterfly that emerges from it is harmless, efficient pollinator. Hantik ants make harvesting of fruits inconvenient because of their painful bite, but they guard the trees from destructive insects. Houseflies carry germs, but without them the earth would be littered with dead, undecomposed organisms. They are nature’s chief decomposers working hand in hand with bacteria and fungi. Termites may cause a house to crumble, but without them the forest would be a heap of fallen trees.

It is natural to see leafhoppers on rice plants, aphids on corn, bugs in the soil, grasshopper on the meadow, borers on twigs, fruit flies on ripening fruits. These organisms live with us under one biosphere. If we can think we can dominate them, we have to think again. They have been dominating the earth for billions of years, even before man appeared. Just one proof: the total weight of ants inhabiting the earth outweighs six billion human inhabitants.

There is no way to escape pesky creatures. Conflict arises only when their populations increase rapidly to overrun our crops, spoil our stored products, and threaten our health and welfare.

We have set certain thresholds of our co-existence with insects. As long as they do not cross that line, we can cohabit this planet peacefully with them. By so doing, we can ponder at the beauty of their wings, the mystery of the fire they carry, the music they make, the magnitude of their numbers, or marvel at the mystery of their presence.

 Part 3 -  Make Your Backyard a Research Laboratory 

of Insects

Dr Abe V Rotor

The science of Insects is one of the least explored fields of biology because of their extreme diversity both genetic and environmental, their incredible persistence and wide adaptation. But to a keen observer, entomology can start on the backyard with unending source of specimen throughout the year. Take these examples. 
   

 

Click Beetle, Family Elateridae, Order Coleoptera, also called snapping beetle.  When the insect falls on it back, it snaps its neck to regain normal position.  Snapping can be clearly heard so that it becomes a game of sort. Ask "How many loves have I or she?" And the click beetle either remains still or clicks, sometimes in succession.

 

June Beetle, Leucopholis irrorata Family Scarabidae, Order Coleoptera, also called May beetle when the rains arrive early and the beetle metamorphoses early. Its larva called grub ius destructive to plants by eating the roots.  It lives almost a year underground, spends a week as pupa, then crawls out of the soil. The biological clock of ther June beetle - so with other organisms - leaves more puzzles than what science can explain. 

 

Left, Tussock Moth caterpillars (higad) Order Lepidopera devour a leaf of castor bean seemingly unaffected by the toxin ricinin, (from which the plant derives its scientific name - Ricinus communis) - one of the most poisonous substances in nature.  Right, a bunch of juvenile short horned grasshoppers (Oxya velox), Family Locustidae, Order Orthoptera. 

 

Naiad or young of the dragonfly, Order Homoptera, (left) in its last instar about to metamorphose.  It is aquatic in its naiad stage and feeds on mosquito wrigglers, other insects, daphnia, and the like, for many months, then metamorphoses into the winged cicada.  It leaves its skin cast intact, often on the trunk of a nearby tree (right photo). Only the male cicada can produce music, which is actually a mating call. The female is born mute and is attracted by the singing of the male. A good singer may attract as many as five females, which is not the case with other organisms, including humans.  

 

Wasp pollinator of fig (Ficus pseudopalma). Figs have inverted flowers, so that pollination and fertilization are done by a wasp (specific to the fig species).  It the female wasp which enters the posterior opening (operculum) of the flower which looks like fruity, pollinates and fertilizers the flowers, at the same time lays eggs which will produced the next generation of pollinators.  

 

Left, male rhinoceros beetle (Oryctes rhinoceros), Order Coleoptera.  The male has elaborate and long horns like a miniature Triceratops, which are indeed menacing to its enemy though useless as tool of aggression. Rhino beetles are among the major pest of coconut, the larva or grub bores into the heart of the tree destroying the young leaves even before they are formed.   Right, a stinkbug (Nezara viridula) Order Hemiptera, lay eggs in cluster.  It earns its name from its characteristic bug odor that is obnoxious to its enemies such as birds and frogs - and to humans. The substance is caustic to the eye and skin. 

  

 

Left, Cranefly, relative of the mosquito (Order Diptera) is also called as daddy-long-legs.  It is constantly moving when it is supposed to be at rest. By swaying to and fro and side to side the insects is seen hazy to a would-be predator.  In Ilocano we call the insect gingined (earthquake) because of its continuous quaking action. Right, a lone caterpillar prepares to attack a bud of Hibiscus (gummamela).  It will metamorphose into a garden butterfly.   

 

A relative of insects (Class Arachnida) this Wolsey Spider, a hairy large common house spider carries its egg sack to safety in preparation to hatching. Spiders are biological agents feeding on insect pest like mosquitoes, leafhoppers and weevils. The Wolsey spider got its name from Bishop Wolsey, right hand man of Henry VIII of England in the 14th century, who nearly died of fright on finding this spider in his bed. Wolsey died not because of the spider but because of ire of his cruel master. ~  

Part 4 - Ichabod: My Preying Mantis Pet 

Dr Abe V Rotor 

"Friendship is made more meaningful when one recognizes the right of 

the other  to be free over and above mutual care and respect." - avr

Assignment:

1. What is the lesson of this story?

2. Outline the life cycle of the preying mantis.

3.. What other insects or their relatives which are made into pets? 

A green creature surreptitiously stalked behind a leaf. It was either hiding or lurking. I could have missed this master of camouflage if it did not stare, large off-tangent eyes on the guard, 180 degrees on any plane.

A preying mantis (Mantis religiosa L).  Actual photograph of Ichabod

That was how Ichabod, the green mantis, came into my life. I plucked him from his perch and brought him to my room. Most of the time Ike stayed on the jamb, waiting for some kind of manna - flies and mosquitoes falling from head-on collision with the glass pane. Or he would snatch other insects that blundered within his reach. Feeding on these pests spared me of annoyance.

I learned to recognize a symbiosis of two friends. I caught young hoppers for my friend. It was the green lymph which he relished most. That gave him a change in diet. I took him for rides on my palm and shoulder and helped him survey for insects which he would lunge at and devour. In the sala he frequented areas where nocturnal insects hovered. Ike was contented with this kind of life, so I thought.

One afternoon I was surprised to find my friend hanging, dry and weightless like an empty sack. He must have paid for his own goriness, I concluded. Ike is a voracious predator, devouring creatures even bigger than his size. His front legs have sharp, long spines which instantly drive fast and deep like saber or fang, and a victim would simply writhe and struggle briefly, while its head is severed by vise-strong mandibles.

I began to feel sorry for Ike. I reached for him to give my last respect to a good friend.

But Ike simply hung his old clothes. A little farther I found him a metamorphosed new creature seemingly laughing at my ignorance. Ike had entered into the final and mature stage of his life, now with full grown wings, and a powerful body, three inches long. Ignorance and curiosity led me to the library.

Mantids or mantises are related to grasshoppers, locusts, crickets and cockroaches. They are the only carnivorous species under Order Orthoptera (now Mantodea). They are called praying mantises because of their kneeling position, or preying mantises for their predatory habit. They are more popular by their latter name, although in many countries they are called mule killers, soothsayers or devil horses, which of course, are not to be taken literally.

One of the common beliefs about the mantids is that they spit into the eye causing excruciating pain or possibly blindness. This is not true. A species of walking stick, another relative has been observed to be the culprit. No, not my friend.

Indeed the mantids are ferocious when it comes to preying. And when they eat on destructive insects, farmers like them. Their devouring instinct is carried on wherever they go and whatever they do - even in lovemaking! The female devours her mate during mating or after he has wooed her. Scientists say that on the occipital portion of the head of the male lies an inhibitor, a mass of nerves called ganglion. When this is gnawed away, the sperms are discharged in no time, terminating the marital act and insuring egg fertilization. Devouring the remaining part of the body afterward is believed to be just a matter of satisfying appetite.

I knew then what would happen to Ike when he gets a mate. Days went on and he became more lonely. He had reached full “mantidhood”. So I decided to give him a bride but one that was petite and thus eliminate a dreaded fate. But Ike was indifferent, and did not show the slightest affection. Instead, he squeezed his potential bride between his raptorial forelegs until she was killed. I felt ashamed to realize that what I was doing is a violation of a treaty in friendship.

So I had to make a decision. One morning I took Ike for a ride, opened the window, drew the curtains apart, and put him there a leap away from the free world. As I gently stroked his back he gave a long meaningful look. I just smiled back and walked away.

When I returned my friend was gone. As I stared at his old clothes the morning breeze brought in a nostalgic feeling that was to remind me for life a true meaning of friendship.

A legacy born out of a brief accidental relationship of man and insect shares a lesson that friendship is made more meaningful when one recognizes the right of the other to be free over and above mutual care and respect.  

Fifty years from the time I wrote Ichabod: My Preying Mantis Pet, I found another specimen in its likeness.  It perched on my shoulder and stayed there long enough for me to take this photo.  It is like revisiting my childhood as if Nature is ageless in sweet memory. 

*Ichabod is a fiction character in a story by Washington Irving,
author of Ichabod Crane, Rip Van Winkle, and The Legend of Sleepy Willow

Part 5 - Beware of the Higad! (Budo-budo Ilk.)

Dr Abe V Rotor

 

Higad (Budo-budo Ilk) is the caterpillar of Tussock Moth 

 

Author shows the stages of the life of the insects: egg, 

caterpillar (higad), pupa, and adult.

When you come in contact with the spiny caterpillar, do not rub or wash. Melt candle and train it on the affected area drop by drop until the embedded spines are covered. Allow the wax to solidify before peeling it off. Apply vinegar or calamansi on the sore.

Leo Carlo is the most sensitive in the family to allergy. At one time I rushed him to the nearest hospital for immediate shot of antihistamine. He stepped on the casting of higad, the caterpillar of the tussock moth. In his attempt to soap away the embedded bristles, he unknowingly caused it to spread all over his body. He stayed in the hospital until the swelling subsided.

Some years earlier Leo had a similar experience. The allergy came from the eggs of talakitok fish he ate. The swelling was so severe his eyes were virtually closed. Timely anti-allergy injection saved him.

Allergy runs in the family. Marlo, my oldest son is allergic to all kinds of crustaceans, from crabs to shrimps. I am allergic to tulingan fish.

But it is insect allergy that we are always on the guard. Insects are perhaps the most common causes of allergy in the world. Let me cite some findings and experiences.

• The popular image of insect allergies is its association with the bites and stings of venomous species like bees, ants, and wasps (injectant allergens). Over one-hundred deaths per year in the U.S. are attributed to fatal reactions to arthropod venoms. We don’t have any record in the Philippines on casualties from this cause.

• More common allergic reactions attributable to insects include those caused by contacting body parts or waste products (contactant allergens) or inhaling microscopic dust particles composed of pulverized carcasses, cast skins and excreta (inhalant allergens). Symptoms range from eczema and dermatitis, to rhinitis, congestion and bronchial asthma.

• Mites  which are relatives of insects that infest cheese, bran, dried fruits, jams and sugars are known to cause transient dermatitis among workers when body fluids are re leased upon crushing. Similarly dust mites that inhabit our dwellings cause cold symptoms often diagnosed as such, or as asthma.

Mite (greatly enlarged)

. There are people sensitive to mosquito bite. Usually it is accompanied by swelling of the affected area and itchiness, becoming dark afterward. It takes a week or more for the skin to return to its normal color. This symptom may be similarly manifested by the bite of flea (Siphonoptera).

• Nine orders of insects, and mites and spiders (Arachnids) were found to be the sources of the inhalant allergens. In the US a survey found out that allergy symptoms are due to direct or airborne exposure to Lepidopteran (moth and butterfly) scales - despite the use of exhaust hoods and protective masks and clothing. Case histories of asthma among Lepidoptera workers are numerous.

• Personally I discourage the use of butterflies released in wedding receptions, and other occasions for that matter. Scales of the butterfly (and moth and skippers as well) are made up of a very tough kind of protein known as chitin which can cause blindness other than allergy. Children are most vulnerable to this.

• Reactions to Orthoptera (grasshoppers, crickets, locusts, cock roaches, etc.) are also common in the form of rhinitis, itching skin, bronchitis and ultimately asthma in general sequence. A researcher suffered dyspnea (labored breathing) during a prolonged session of grinding crickets into meal to supplement chicken feed. There are also cases of anaphylactic shock involving orthopterans.

. Have you experienced waking up with swollen eyelid? One explanation is that, you must have been bitten by cockroach (Periplaneta or Blatta) while you were sleeping. Cockroaches eat on almost anything, including dried tears.

• Workers in grain warehouses exposed to the insect pest like weevils (Coleoptera) suffer from skin itching, hives, rhinitis, dyspnea, and bronchial asthma.

• Flies and midges (Diptera) as well as mayflies (Ephemeroptera) and caddisflies (Trichoptera) have likewise been implicated as allergy.

• Fortunately processing – from milling to cooking - largely diminish the potential threat of food allergies as compared with their reactivity in raw form. But this is no guarantee of eliminating the allergen. One may be allergic to the bean weevil that attacks mungbean, and when the bean is cooked the insect allergen is diminished. But the allergy to the bean itself is not. One school of thought suggests that insect allergens in food are deactivated by cooking, or deactivated in the highly acidic environment of the stomach.

. Red ants (Solenopsis geminata) bite and sting, injecting formic acid in the process, which explains the extreme pain sensation. Because they attack by group, the amount of formic acid may reach a level that leads to anaphylaxis to sensitive people, and may cause death. Children are most vulnerable.

. The most dangerous sting comes from the wild African honeybee that hybridized with the domesticated honeybee since its entry to the US several years ago. Beekeepers have learn to deal with the crossbred because it produces more honey than the domesticated type. Except for hornets, they are perhaps the most dangerous bees in the world.

. We have a local counterpart of hornets - the paper wasp or putakti. They are however less dangerous because they attack only intruders or when they are disturbed.

. The tree ant, locally known as hantik, can cause extreme pain and discomfort to orchard growers and fruit pickers, intruders notwithstanding. There are people who are highly allergic to their poison.

. Relatives of insects that are harmful for their poison are

. Black Widow spider (Latrodectus mactans) 

  is the most dangerous arachnid PHOTO

. Scorpion

. Centipede

. Millipede (it exudes cyano gas when threatened)

• There is evidence for cross-reactivity among distantly related members of the Arthropoda suggesting the existence of common allergens within the phylum. So, if you are allergic to shrimps, you are likely to be allergic to say, camaro (fried mole cricket) a delicacy not only locally but in other parts of the world. Beware of insects, specially those that cause allergy. ~ Acknowledgement: Internet photos

Part 6 -

The Versatile Beetle - Source of Delightful Ideas

Dr Abe V Rotor

Male coconut beetle (Oryctes rhinoceros) sporting three
sharp, elongated horns like the Triceratops, hence it is
commonly referred to as rhinoceros beetle.

Beetles comprise nearly a quarter of all the described species on Earth. Over 350,000 species are known worldwide. They are the most varied in size and shape, color and design, and many species are grotesque, they can pass for aliens. There is virtually no place without beetles, and they can survive the passing of seasons by hibernation or aestivation in extreme cases.

But what is amazing is that the beetle is perhaps the most copied insect among inventors, architects, soldiers and school children. It is a source of other delightful ideas about food, games, art, love, and a lot more. Let's take these examples.

• The famous Beetle - Volkwagen, and subsequent car models, are basically modeled as beetle-on-wheels.

• The armored car and the war tank like the German Panzer, are built almost invincible to conventional weapons, and could negotiate rough terrains as the beetle does.

• The dome of cathedrals (St Peter's basilica) and sports arena (Roman Colosseum, modern sports complex) are shaped like the ladybug or the tortoise beetle. The dome is the distinguishing structure of Baroque and Gothic churches designed for strength and function, as well as beauty.

• The submarine, from its prototype Nautilus in Jules Verne's novel, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, to the U-Boat in World War II, are tough yet sleek like the beetle.

• The fuselage of modern airplanes is as solid and compact as the body of the beetle. (Airbus, Boeing 747) that as many as 500 passengers can be accommodated. The adjustable nose of the Concorde was patterned after the beetle's telescopic body segments.

• Which led to the invention of retractable ramp ways, telescopes, wall divisions, blinds, doors, hose and a hundred-and-one household and industrial articles.

• Farm equipment (corn sheller, rice thresher, cone type rice mill) , and kitchenware (pressure cookers and ovens), owe their efficiency and durability to the structural design of the beetle.

• Fighter planes such as the Stealth combined the aerodynamic features of beetles and lepidopterans (moths). So with racing cars.

• The lining of furniture and cars is like the inner wings of the beetle (lower photo), while the tough cover of delicate instruments (watches, camera) are like the outer wings (elytra) of the beetle which are built to withstand shook, pressure and the elements.

• The concept of the lighthouse came from the firefly, which is actually a beetle, so with the insect's mating signal. Blinkers of ships, tall buildings, airplanes, in war zone and camps, are traced to the blinking of the firefly.

• Yet the efficiency of the firefly's lamp can never be equaled - not even with our most advanced lamps. The more intriguing fact is its bioluminescence, which is light emitted directly from a living body. How glow worms light the deep caves is still a mystery.

• The Egyptians regarded the Scarabid beetle sacred to the level of worshiping it. The ladybug beetle is enshrined in children books, and idolized in cartoons and animaes. I still remember this beautiful stanza which tells us how the ladybug got black spots on its wings.

"Ladybug, ladybug,
Where have you been?
Your house is on fire,
And your children are in."

• The most colorful insects second to the lepidopterans are beetles. While they can't produce sensible music but geek...geek...geek, or occasional clicking, a band named the Beatles have yet to be equaled in popularity. Though spelled differently the beetle-like hairdo of the band members is definitely a beetle-shape.

• On the other hand, the beetle is associated with vice. Gladiator beetles are reared like fighting cocks in some parts of the world particularly in Asia. When we were children we played with June beetles in a tug-of-war contest and bet on them. Male stag beetles fight reminds us of the knights in armor in the Middle Ages.

• The most dreadful thought about beetles is that they foretell of death. Actually it is the powder post beetle and the deathwatch beetle that this superstitious belief is alluded to. They bore tunnels in wood and in old furniture and in the silence of a dark night you can hear them knocking, sometimes grating like whispering. Their knocking is actually coded love call, and differs according to species and time of the year.

• But what only few people know is that the beetle is nature's miner, such as the leaf miner of coconut. The powder post beetle (Anobium punctatum) tunnels into dead wood, bring out the debris to the tunnel's entrance just like what our miners do.

• The beetles may hold the secret of man's quest for long life. Some furniture beetles can outlive their kindly host without being aware of their presence ensconced in unsuspecting tunnels almost invisible to the eye.

• Now the ultimate scare. Beetle bury the dead! A whole carcass of a rodent would disappear overnight at the site of its death. Examine the soil down under. The carrion beetle is nature's gravedigger (sepulturero) - and joined by other insects, by bacteria and fungi, the cycle of converting the dead into its inorganic components is completed. Otherwise, the world would be one huge pile of dead bodies - and if not recycled, the world would be deprived of new life.

• But the beetles are perhaps the ultimate model of dedication when it comes  to love, and they are very passionate, too. Lovemaking may last for hours. The male dung beetle for one, makes a perfect ball out of animal dung much heavier and bigger compared to its size. The tedious task of taking it to a suitable mate begins, traversing a considerable distance. This swain offers his dowry to a would-be bride. She examines it. On approval, she accepts him, oviposits several eggs into it where her offspring will carry on the next generation.

• Among the most loved exotic food come from the larvae of the beetle called grub. U-ok in felled logs is a giant grub of the long-horned beetle of kapok, two inches long, round and plump, full of "baby fat." It is gathered by local folks, roasted or steamed in banana leaves. Sauteed abal-abal (Ilk) or salagubang (Tag) - Leucopholis irrorata - is a delicacy among Ilocanos and in many parts of the world. They swarm in May and June at the onset of habagat or monsoon.

Yet this insect is perhaps the most notorious pest, causing unimaginable loss in crops, stored products, wood, fabric, chemicals - and even metals like lead, prompting man to defend himself against the very creature that gave him ideas of many inventions, and models of thoughts.

Overall, the beetle is the most endearing insect to man. They are great pollinators, without them we would not have enough flowers, fruits and vegetables. The living world will starve as well. They provide a major link in the food chain, without them ecosystems would collapse. And the firefly is the most beautiful insect - if not among other creatures - because it lifts man's awe and admiration next to the stars. ~

Female coconut beetle (Oryctes rhinocerus).

Beetles have two pairs of wings: the inner pair is designed for flying, while the outer wings are primarily to cover the soft abdomen and delicate wings. Beetles comprise

 the biggest order of insects - Coleoptera (Coleo - sheath, leathery; pteros - wings).

Reference: Living with Nature, AVRotor, UST Publishing House

Part 7 - Strange World of the Swallowtail Butterfly

(Papilio polytes)

Dr Abe V Rotor

 

Caterpillars of Swallowtail Butterfly (Papilio polytes) 

feeding on citrus leaves

"Obnoxious I look and smell no one dares to get near,

much less to pick me neither by beak nor tongue,

for my enemies are few, so my friends - if I know;

you see, if you are ugly and dirty no one bothers you,

like anyone else not excluding some humans;

but in my case Nature designed me this way,

and she thinks I'm beautiful, to me it is a gift of life;

surviving a cruel world. I rest now and someday

I'll metamorphose into something beautiful

in the eyes of humans, so beautiful and dainty

no one will ever ask what I was before." - AV Rotor

Black Swallowtail Butterfly (Papilio polytes) Swallowtail 

butterflies represent the grace and free nature of the 

ineffable human soul, as well as life, hope, endurance 

and change. ~

                     Butterflies in love. Don't disturb. Don't.

A passionate pair of common swallowtail butterflies 

(Papilio polytes)

Copulation lasts for hours, often the whole day and through the night, et consumatum,  in order to insure egg fertilization and therefore, the perpetuation of the species.  During the process false fluorescent large eyes from the colorful hind wings flash on both sides of the pair to scare would-be predators, mainly birds and lizards, and to keep off intruders of their kind. Photo by the author at San Vicente Botanical Garden 2020

Part 8 - The Enigmatic Antlion

Have you played the ukoy-ukoy game?

Dr Abe V Rotor

When we were kids we played the ukoy-ukoy game.  It's a strange game to city bred kids.  But in the province, when it is summer and the place is dry and sandy, the ukoy-ukoy - larva of the ant lion - is an odd thing we played with.  It is a fishing game.  

We would tie one of the fangs (mandible) with a strand of fine hair and fish out another larva in its own hole.  The resident larva sensing an intruder picks a fight and doesn't let go our decoy.  Then we would lift slowly both and put our catch in a jar. After comparing who got the most catch and the biggest, we simply returned them into the sand and watched them make new pits, while others would scamper leaving a doddle trail, before sinking into the sand. It's a dirty game - hands, face and knees - but how we loved the game! It's one for the book of Guinness.  

 

An ant falls into the death trap of the antlion larva. Like in a quicksand the ant struggles only to fall back into the center of the pit. Beneath awaits the assassin. It seizes the victim, paralyzes it by injecting poison from its fangs (mandibles) and drags it deeper to become its meal.

The antlion larva looks like a monster from outer space, barely resembling an insect that we typically know. It is a hairy monster, seemingly docile but aggressive when a prey falls into its pit trap.  After devouring it with a pair of  scythe-like mandible, it rebuilds its pit, and waits for the next victim.  The abdomen is extraordinarily large in proportion to its head and thorax. One explanation to this is that the antlion larva has no anus. All the metabolic waste that is generated during the larval stage is stored and is eventually emitted as meconium near the end of its pupal stage.  The larva makes a globular cocoon of sand stuck together with fine silk spun from a slender spinneret at the posterior end of the body. This hard and thick shell protects the quiescent pupa deep below its former pit.  It remains there for one month, emerging into an adult fly.

The adult may be mistaken for a damsel fly or mayfly, but it is not related in any way. It is one kind of insect that the adult is a far cry in appearance from its immature form. The cocoon metamorphoses, emerging from its pupal case, and climbs to the surface. flexes its wings, then flies about in search for a mate. The adult is considerably larger than the larva; both exhibit the greatest disparity in size and structure between larva and adult of any type of insects that undergo complete metamorphosis. The adult has an extremely thin, flimsy exoskeleton, with the two pairs of wings showing prominent and intricate venation for which the insect probably got its Family name Neuroptera.

The antlion undergoes a complete life cycle (holometabola).  It lives in two different environments, although both larva and adult have predatory habits. The larva lives mostly on ants that blunder and fall into its death trap, pouncing on them like a lion, hence its name.  (Acknowledgement: Wikipedia, Internet)