They're not pests they're helpful garden creatures : Animal Photography

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I have been seeing this lately getting close to my house and they're mostly from the gardens around plus it's been raining more frequently these days. During rainy seasons we see an increase in population of these and the snails because of the conducive environment the environment creates.



If you see these things around, they may be helping the gardens more than you think. They are called flat backed millipedes and they're seen as detritivores which means they eat dead leaves, rotting wood and decaying plants. Even though they look small, they have and use their strong mouthparts to chew the tough garden waste into smaller pieces. They'll digest it well enough too. Inside their bodies are some bacteria that break the garden waste down into the nutrients they live off of. After that they excrete their own waste which is called frass. This frass they excrete is what benefits the garden grounds and the soil.

The waste has nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, it's like I'm listing the ingredients for a fertilizer right? So that's organic natural fertilizer.

Nature has designed itself in such a way that it'll always reduce total waste to almost zero. Everything benefits something and the cycle of life keeps going. The chemicals make the soil more fertile.

That's not the only thing that benefits the soil. We see them crawling all over and as they crawl they make these small holes in the ground. The holes are good because it'll let more air and more water reach the roots of plants which are buried deeper. All of this will do one thing very well, accelerating decomposition. The brown garden rubbish has been turned into a dark and nutrient rich dirt that benefited the soil and the plants.


The good part is they don't eat the living crops so if you see these animals in your garden they're actually working for you. You can't even call them pests, you won't have damages to your property or crops.

Posted using SteemX