The Bean Bug
Habitats, Niche and Adaptations
The Bean Bug (Cerotoma Beanius)
The native habitat of the Bean Bug is the Cowboy Fields, which is entirely made of beans. It eats many things around it including the beans and other insects while keeping control of the population. Not only is the Bean Bug rare, but it camouflages well so it is unlikely you see it, which helps it hide from its' main predator, the bee.
The Bean Bug
The bean bug taken out of its native habitat.
Hidden Bean Bug
In this image the bean bug is in its' native habitat. Because of its texture and color the bean bug blends into the environment.
Visible Bean Bug
Here is the bean bug highlighted in Cowboy Field.
Camouflage
The Bean Bug is rare so it must stay hidden, to do this it blends in with it's habitat. The bug has a texture and color of common beans. Its body looks much like the Great Northern Bean, its head has the color and size of Black Beans while its eyes match a Kidney Bean. When put up next to its bean habitat it looks and feels like a bean so predators don't try to attack it.
Habitat
Around beans is a very great place to live because the Bean Bug can be well fed and hidden. Because there are many beans and many colors the bug blends in perfectly to hide from predators. Also the bug feeds off of the nutritious beans and insects around it. The only downside to this habitat is that a bee can mistake the bug for a bean plant that it's flying to. The bee ends up stinging the Bean Bug causing it to dry up and die. The poison from a bee's stinger is deadly to the Bean Bug while it's only irritating for most of us humans.
Eating Habits
The Bean Bug isn't very picky on it's meals. The bug normally eats insects that fly by and the beans surrounding it. By eating these things it controls how many beans grow and how many insects there are. Although the Bean Bug looks completely harmless it is very vicious. When it eats it shoots out its tongue which has little spikes on it, almost completely invisible to the human eye but very painful to an unsuspecting insect. Its tongue grips the insect and pulls it into its mouth where it chops it up and swallows it. It does a similar thing to the beans except it doesn't have to worry about trying to catch it. It loops its tongue around the bean and pulls it off the stem into its mouth. Humans eat beans and sometimes even insects so it's easy to see how nutritional they are. The Bean Bug is very healthy due to its eating habits so it hardly ever gets sick.
Adaptations
Not including the camoflage, the Bean Bug has a few other major adaptations it uses to thrive. First, it has a slightly sticky stomach helping it stick to the beans so it doesn't get picked up by winds or other threats. It can move because the stomach isn't too sticky and it can slightly lift its stomach so it doesn't have to worry about it sticking to something unwillingly. Not only can it cling to things with ease it has little spikes on its tongue to grip pray as talked about before. The third major adaptation is that it produces asexually. As said before the Bean Bug is very rare so it can be difficult to find a mate. Because of this, the Bean Bug over time adapted to reproducing asexually so its species can thrive and not die out.
Stickyness
The Bean Bug using its sticky stomach to cling to the hanging surface.
Bean Babies
The Bean babies are so tiny that at first they look like little beans, but when zoomed in you can see they look exactly like the parent.
Food
An unsuspecting insect that it about to get grabbed by the Bean Bugs sharp tongue.
Niche
The Bean Bug plays a major role in its environment. First of all it keeps control of the bean population by eating the beans around it. Beans keep growing and multiplying so to keep this in order it eats the surrounding beans. Because there are not many Bean Bugs the beans don't get over eaten. The Bean Bug goes through asexual reproduction once a year creating an offspring very tiny and looking exactly like the original Bean Bug. The Bean Bug only has 1-2 offspring so it can keep control of the bean and insect population while making sure the bugs population doesn't grow too much. Sometimes a Bean Bug can have up to 10 offspring, this normally happens every other year so the bee helps keep the population to a regular number. The last thing is that when the Bean Bug releases waste it provides nutrients for the bean plants causing them to grow. So the main role of the Bean Bug is to keep the bean and insect population at a good number by eating them and helping the beans grow and the bee keeps the Bean Bug population in order.
In Plain Sight!
Just like the Bean Bug, there are many creatures that camouflage to hide. The most common place is in plain sight! We over look the area because of the organisms ability to hide itself. When you look at a tree you may just see a lot of leaves and sticks and think nothing of it, but when you look closer you might see a Stick Bug or Leaf Bug. These organisms are made to loom like their habitat so they can be in plain sight and still not be seen. Camouflage is critical for some organisms to survive. Without this amazing adaptations, food chains and webs today would be completely different because some organisms would be extinct. After all the best place to hide is in plain sight!