I was fortunate enough to travel to Singapore and do an insect study among the mangroves for my highschool science project. My parents had some business to conduct there, so I got to tag along. We stayed at one of the 5 Star Singapore Hotels for a whole week, which gave me plenty of time everyday to work up a field study where the insect has been relatively poorly studied, and the possibility for a scientific discovery sparked me on.
I found that the most common insect in the mangroves are the invertebrate with wings, but there are many ground-dwelling ones also which are definitely wingless. All insects that have a single pair of antennae and tree pairs of legs and adults have a body divided into three parts: the head, the thorax and the abdomen. Though numerous in the Singapore mangroves, insects are much less obvious tot he casual visitor. Their diversity is so huge that little is known about many of them. The beetles is definitely the most of the most common insect and the most noticeable. Then there’s the moths and butterflies, the flies, ants, termites and finally the crickets and grasshoppers.
I consider the Springtails common in the mangroves, but most biologists do not regard them as a true insect. Now, young insects such as the caterpillars, grubs, maggots and wrigglers which a more frequent term to call them is larvae are more frequently seen than the adults. But, I found it difficult to know what a larvae becomes after its metamorphosis. The only way to really know is to rear them to the adult stage. I noticed that quite often all I ever did observe was the damage the insects left behind on the leave of a tree or bush. But, this was good enough for me, because each eaten leave was the insects characteristic signature. I had a great time identifying which insect ate what leaf.
May whole week in the mangroves was the best week of my life. I could’ve spent all my time there just cataloguing and observing the wonderful world of insects, but alas, my parents yanked me back to the real world of school and family.
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