16 APR 2024
Credit: Google Images
Credit: Google Images
It’s hard to get the warm fuzzies for earthworms. They have no legs. They don’t have eyes or a face, and their bodies stretch like rubber. They secrete a slime—mucus—that helps them slide more easily through the soil. But these faceless fellows can be big friends to farmers.
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Their name comes from Latin, meaning “thousand legs.” As it turns out, no known millipede species has a thousand legs. Most top out at several hundred. Although millipedes may look unpleasant, these arthropods (they are not insects) are harmless to humans and are, in fact, very beneficial to farm soils.
Credit: Google Images
Even people afraid of most insects usually aren’t creeped out by ladybugs. But for those with Coccinellidaephobia, a fear of ladybugs, walking through a garden or farm can be terrifying. It makes sense—in nature, red and black is often a sign to stay away.
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As many schoolchildren can tell you, plants need pollinators. Why? A quick refresher: pollen from a plant's male anther needs to be transferred to the female stigma for a plant to reproduce via seeds.
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What is it about spiders that unnerves people? Is it their sticky, often hard-to-spot webs, or the way they pounce so quickly when prey is near? Something about spiders unsettles most people. Yet spiders are incredibly beneficial to us.
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Though they have a reputation as a pest animal and a nuisance, coyotes are, in fact, a species that can bring benefits to farms. Coyotes are skilled predators, keeping populations of rodents that can destroy crops—such as rabbits, squirrels, gophers, voles and mice in check.
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Snakes get a bad rap. Many people seem to have an almost visceral aversion to the sinuous reptiles. While snakes are sneaking about our fields and avoiding us, they are preying on gophers, field mice, rats, rabbits and other rodents that damage crops by feeding on them or burrowing into their roots.
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Skunks consume pest insects like caterpillars and grubs, field mice and voles, helping to keep them under control. They also eat berries, leaves and grasses. Beekeepers do not like skunks, however. Because of their thick fur, skunks aren’t deterred by bee stings and will seek out honeybee hives to dine on.
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Some people fear that, like Dracula, bats will drink their blood. But none of the 40 bat species inhabiting the U.S. drink blood. Three species are nectar feeders that help pollinate desert plants, while most U.S. bats eat insects in abundance.
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The banshee screech of an owl can sound supernatural in the pitch blackness of night on a farm, but owls are super-carnivores that benefit farmers significantly.