TOIL TO BRING UP THEIR YOUNG ONES

I gazed an elephant-dung slowly, steadily and strangely moving to one side of our courtyard. I leaned forward in my chair to observe what was happening, I was astounded when I spotted a tiny beetle with an armoured body pushing and rolling the dung with his four hind legs. The other two forelegs were firmly fixed to the ground. At times, another beetle came to help him out in his hard labour. I watched them pushing it about fifteen feet away beneath the shadow of a guava tree. These insects toiled to bring up their little ones. I observed that the beetle laid numerous eggs inside the elephant dung. They did it on cow dung and decayed wood particles too. When the eggs were hatched, their young ones hid inside and fed on the dung or decayed wood. Thereby it helped in recycling the dung into organic soil.

A few days later, l noticed a fowl devouring those tiny insects. I felt really sorry for the mother beetle, who was not anywhere around to counter this attack. I have also observed other insects, crustaceans, amphibians and fish that spawned numerous eggs. They do not provide proper care or attention to the progeny and therefore very few of them survived and grew. A great majority were eaten by predators or destroyed. On the other hand the birds and mammals give plenty of care and attention to bring up their offsprings.  Therefore an attachment and bonding is created amongst the advanced mammals.

I have noticed that the insects too are forced to alter their habits due to the changes in environment. With cows and cowdung becoming a rarity beetles are finding alternate sources to multiply and breed. I noticed that all our mangoes are infested with these beetles. During the flowering season, these beetles would lay their eggs in the ovary of the mango flowers and enter the seed. The little ones would eat the kernel inside mango-nut and would grow. When the mango ripens they would come out through the flesh and thus spoil the fruit. Another variety of beetles would lay their eggs on the outer skin of mangoes and when it ripens the beetles moved inside and fed on the flesh thereby spoiling the whole fruit. This was very rare phenomenon I observed during my childhood days.

The only way of salvaging the fruit from the latter type of beetles is by plucking the mangoes before it is fully ripe and giving them a hot water dip to kill the eggs on the outer skin.

I have noticed that the presence of large number of the big red ants (‘Muyiru’ or ‘Mussar’) protects the mangoes from the attack of beetles and other pests by feeding on them.

I was really interested in observing even the minute wonders of nature; the small and big red and black ants, termites, insects like the house-fly, mosquitoes, crickets, and the dragon-flies.  All these have three pairs of joined legs; the centipedes have more than twenty pairs and millipede having numerous legs; crustaceans like crabs and spiders having four pairs of legs and the amphibians like the frogs. It is interesting to watch these small animals toil so hard to convert the flora and fauna into organic soil. The female mosquitoes are harsh on animals and humans. They break the skin and suck the blood. When their abdomens are burstingly full they turn wine red; in this state they are unable to fly away to their hideouts and often fall prey to lizards, frogs, mantis and even birds. Tiny as they are, they too work laboriously to rear their young ones. 

Excerpts from

MEMOIRS

An autobiography

by

Joseph J. Thayamkeril

Lawyer, Kochi, Kerala, India.

josephjthayamkeril.blogspot.com

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