Phylum Arthropoda Benefits and Drawbacks for Ecosystems

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Nature is wonderful and surprising, especially when we realize that while there are beneficial species, there are also species that, in fulfilling their role in ecosystems, cause serious harm to other organisms, including farmers.

A very small beetle, up to 2 mm in size, is seen near freshly harvested and pulped coffee beans, which it pierces with its mandibles and then lays its eggs inside. When the eggs hatch into larvae, they feed on the endosperm of these aromatic beans. This insect is part of the food chain, but the impact is negative for ecosystems and farmers.

A centipede moving through the leaf litter in our planter at the house in Palmira, Andrés Eloy Blanco municipality, Lara state. This animal is an arthropod that is very beneficial to ecosystems.

Among these contradictory cases, the beetles of the Curculionidae family stand out; they possess the morphological ability to damage the seeds of many plants used by humans and other animal species for their own benefit or that of their populations.

A coffee borer beetle photographed between two coffee beans: one intact and the other damaged by the beetle.

One of the most common examples in the highlands of Lara State, Venezuela, is the damage caused by beetles known as coffee borers, particularly because these mountainous areas are ideal for growing coffee (Coffea arabica, Rubiaceae family) and, for the most part, these geographical areas have been dedicated to this crop, which currently suffers losses of up to 40% due to damage caused by the borer, turning good beans into useless coffee with no commercial value, thereby increasing production costs for this sector. Taxonomically, the coffee berry borer is classified in the Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Arthropoda, Class Insecta, Order Coleoptera, Family Curculionidae, Genus Hypothenemus, Species H. prolixus.

Dorsal view of the coffee borer beetle. Its body length can reach 2 mm.

Ventral view of the coffee borer beetle.

The life cycle of the coffee berry borer is straightforward: after mating, the female bores into the coffee cherry (or drupe), enters the endosperm of the bean, and lays between 35 and 50 eggs. These eggs can complete their life cycle in about a week, although in some cases—such as with unripe fruit or fruit with high moisture content—it can take up to 45 days. It is important to note that females can fly, but males do not have wings; therefore, females can lay eggs and move to another cherry, repeating this process throughout their 190-day life cycle, while males remain in the same bean, mating throughout their 40-day life cycle.

Of the two seeds inside a coffee cherry, the coffee borer beetle almost always damages one, while the other remains viable.

In the ripest fruits, more than 100 adult beetles may be found living together. Up to three generations of these beetles can coexist. The damage caused by the coffee berry borer to the endosperm of the bean is so severe that it turns brown, takes on a mottled appearance, crumbles into lumps, and has no commercial value. The beetles almost always damage one of the two beans present in the coffee drupe.

One grain with damaged endosperm, another viable one, and next to them, the perpetrator.

The author had the opportunity to observe the first quarantine zones established in Portuguesa State, Venezuela, in an effort to prevent the coffee borer beetle from entering the country from Colombia; however, the farming practices of Venezuelan coffee growers played a key role in allowing this beetle to spread throughout coffee plantations across the country.

A coffee cherry, showing one of the beans pierced by the coffee borer

An image showing the damage caused by the coffee borer to the endosperm of the grain.

In addition to pruning and burning coffee crops, the use of the Beauveria bassiana fungus was recommended (Kingdom Fungi, Division Ascomycota, Class Sordariomycetes, Order Hypocreales, Family Clavicipitaceae, Genus Beauveria, Species Beauveria bassiana), which invades the beetle’s body, parasitizes it, and causes its death. This biological control method was the most suitable, but Venezuelan farmers did not have access to it or to the equipment required for its application and the establishment of sanitary barriers using the fungus.

A coffee plant (Coffea arabica, Rubiaceae family) bears ripe coffee cherries, which can be infested by the coffee berry borer, thereby reducing their commercial value.

In contrast, we find the ecological behavior of a species belonging to the phylum Arthropoda, subphylum Myriapoda, known as the rosquilla or millipede, which provides significant benefits to ecosystems, making it a subject worthy of study.

A centipede was spotted moving through the area of the Palmira hamlet, A. E. Blanco municipality, Lara state, at 8:31 p.m. on April 8, 2026.

https://youtu.be/o5M7mhzovkw Video uploaded from my YouTube account, which you can follow under the name Ali Riera

In rural areas of Venezuela, it is common to find arthropods moving between ecosystems, a fact supported by the number of species documented within this phylum of the Animal Kingdom—which includes more than 1,400,000 species—and by the suitability of the terrain that makes up Venezuela’s geography, particularly the villages of the Andrés Eloy Blanco municipality in Lara State. Lara, which include the Andean foothills, where the village of Palmira is located, with geographic coordinates 9.740670,-69.672002.

A panoramic view of some of the areas surrounding my home in the of Palmira, Andrés Eloy Blanco municipality, Lara state, Venezuela.

Among the species belonging to the phylum Arthropoda, we spotted a millipede, or, as my children used to call them when they were little, “little centipedes,” whose movements through the woods are silent, cautious, and very swift—factors that help them evade potential predators while they feed on and break down the plant matter in the leaf litter or search for a sexual partner.

A Narceus americanus millipede moving through the leaf litter in one of the planters at my home in Palmira.

This centipede, spotted in the garden of our residence in the Palmira community, belongs to the Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Arthropoda, Subphylum Myriapoda, and is characterized by a body divided into metameres, from which two pairs of functional legs for locomotion develop on each metamer, placing it in the Class Diplopoda, and in this particular case, the specimen belongs to the Order Spirobolida, Family Spirobolidae, Genus Narceus, Species Narceus americanus, an animal native to the southeastern regions of the United States of America, this being the second time I have reported the sighting of a specimen of this species in the Palmira community.

A Narceus americanus millipede curled up and blending in with the leaf litter in the planter at my residence.

In this image, you can see the native range of the centipede Narceus americanus and a map showing the location of the sighting in Venezuela.

This millipede is a nocturnal animal; it is worth noting that I spotted it at 4:15 p.m. on April 7, 2026, at the start of the rainy season in this area, when the sky was cloudy, the ground was very wet, and the temperature was below 20° Celsius—factors that must have forced this small arthropod to leave its daytime habitat during twilight hours. These arthropods produce secretions containing hydrogen cyanide (HCN) that they use as a defense mechanism against potential predators, but there have been reports of sightings of millipede carcasses in which only the head and the first two segments have been eaten, indicating that animals such as rodents or birds have learned to detect which parts of the millipede’s body contain the cyanide-based toxin.

I took this photo of the centipede at 4:35 p.m. on April 7, 2026.

I took this photo of the centipede at 8:34 p.m. on April 8, 2026,

It must be made very clear that animals such as Narceus americanus are very important to the health of ecosystems and, furthermore, are already beginning to play a role in food chains.

A juvenile specimen of Narceus americanus, approximately 6 cm long, was caught while attempting to take refuge in one of the rooms of our house in the Palmira community at 8:06 a.m. on April 10, 2026.

A photo taken at the moment a Narceus americanus was crossing the perimeter fence of our house, located in the community of Palmira, A. E. Blanco Municipality, Lara State.

SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Hypothenemus hampei SOURCE

Curculionidae SOURCE

Narceus americanus a millipede. SOURCE

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Ali Riera

All images and videos were recorded using a Xiaomi Redmi 9C smartphone and are the property of @aliriera