Entry 3
My last observation is on Marsh Park. In this location, I noticed an odd amount of lady bugs and asian lady beetle. The two look highly similar. Tee difference between lady bugs and asian lady beetle is that lady bug is a huge group of insect and asian lady beetle is a type of lady bug. There is a significant difference in their appearances. Both of them have the signature red as their pattern. Sometimes they have dots and sometimes they do not. One major difference is that asian lady beetle has a longer body, it is not as round as other lady bugs. Also, asian lady beetles have a pointier head compared to other lady bugs.
We easily caught up to 10 lady bugs when we visited. This means that there is a high amount of prey in this area. Most lady bugs eat aphids. We did not notice any aphids but they are really small so we might have missed it. But it is guaranteed that there is a large amount of them due to the large amount of lady bugs. Aphids are considered pests because they feed on crops, hence destroying them. Lady bugs act as exterminators as they feed on aphids, saving the crops as a byproduct when they feed on aphids. There were many healthy plants in the area which I believe is due to the lady bugs feeding on the aphids.
Aphids is a huge issue because they can affect any crops. It is stated, "Association of recorded aphid species with medicinal plants suggests either these aphid species have adapted most of these plants as their regular secondary hosts or reservoir hosts to tend over the period when their food crop host plants or preferable stage thereof is not available.In either case, these beneficial plants would suffer both quantitative and qualitative loss associated with aphid infestation" Aphids will move on to other plants if the one they are used to is no longer there thus causing a huge issues for humans because will will be losing a lot of crops. Keeping lady bug population steady can assure that aphids can cause little to no issues. As stated, we are not simply losing crops. Plants with medicinal values will be affected as well so it is important to protect lady bugs so they can lower the number of aphids.
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