Minds & Hearts &Bugs Fulbright Scholar Jessa Thurman (Homo sapiens) is an entomologist from a small part of Arkansas who came to Australia in order to pursue her passion for studying insects. She is currently completing her PhD at the University of Queensland, investigating how we can decrease our usage of pesticides to save farmers' personal health and economic wellbeing, alongside decreasing the negative impact we have on the environment. Jessa's other passion is photography, and for this issue, she wanted to share three symbiotic stories featuring insects and their host plants.
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WOOLY RAMBUTAN (Alectryon tomentosus) THE
is an Australian rainforest tree that is commonly used by revegetation groups. And thankfully so for Stilida indecora, a large bug that feeds on this plant. This bug can carry out its entire life cycle on the Wooly Rambutan, mating, laying large clutches of eggs, guarding over the eggs and young nymphs, then letting the nymphs disperse. Several predators feed on the numerous nymphs produced by Stilida indecora, but some of these cute bugs make it to adulthood in the end.
