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Photo#18409
burrowing bug carrying grass seed - Microporus nigrita

burrowing bug carrying grass seed - Microporus nigrita
Hudson, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, USA
May 26, 2005
Size: 4.5 mm
This bug was carrying a grass seed around on a driveway surface next to a newly seeded lawn with the first shoots just starting to come up. This was after several days of rain in the region.

I had never before seen any bug carrying an item of foodstuff off someplace like an ant. What was it going to do with the seed? Unfortunately, my photography apparently made it nervous and it dropped the seed before I could find out.

Do burrowing bugs bury seeds and inject digestive enymes in them when they soften so their nymphs can feed on them underground? What is the natural history of burrowing bugs?

And how, lacking mandibles, was the bug able to carry the seed?

Finally, what economic impact do burrowing bugs have? Do they feed on wheat seed in freshly sowed fields for instance?

Images of this individual: tag all
burrowing bug carrying grass seed - Microporus nigrita burrowing bug that was carrying grass seed - Microporus nigrita burrowing bug carried this grass seed - Microporus nigrita

Moved

Moved
Moved from Burrowing Bugs.

One mystery solved!
Patrick Alexander, a bugguide contributor and grad student at Univestity of New Mexico, has researched the maternal behavior of another species of burrowing bug that provisions its nymphs with seeds. See http://boechera.nmsu.edu/~paalexan/bugs/bugs.html

This individual was apparently doing the same thing, and if I had kept a little more distance, would have taken the seed underground for her offspring. I could then have excavated and found the nymphs.

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