Arthropods can affect man, animals and agriculture
Arthropods affect man by being pests, inoculating poison, invading tissue, or transmitting disease. Inoculation of poison may occur as either a bite or a sting.
This discussion is limited to the irritative, poisonous, allergic effects of these pests.
"A pest, then, is an organism that reduces the availability of some resource valued by humans, such as a commodity, or one�s health or esthetic pleasure."
Any living thing�plant, animal or microbe�has the potential to become a pest. Rodents, fungi, and roundworms are just a few of the groups that have members considered to be pests. Insects, mites and ticks, however, perhaps because of their central role in spreading diseases and destroying food crops, seem to elicit a special enmity.
More immediately, recent history has seen the emergence and re-emergence of a variety of arthropod threats, with everything from "killer" bees to encephalitis-bearing mosquitoes. Global trade, climate change, and airline transportation have each played a role in expanding the range and virulence of such problems. Particularly alarming has been a resurgence of arthropod-borne diseases, including such forgotten scourges as yellow fever and bubonic plague.PODS:
south USA. Its size is small: one inche of diameter.
