I call it Stinky Big Sister here, what do you call it there?
"Stinky Big Sister", scientific name bug, is an insect classified in the order Hemiptera. These guys are very harmful to fruits and vegetables and trees, plus the stinky big sister is not small, can let out the smell, regardless of the city and countryside, everyone hates it.
But then again, it's pretty good in Hemiptera, a cousin of Stinky Big Sister, notorious: the Assassin bugs literally translate to "assassin bugs").
Hemiptera, Assassin Worm
Assassin bugs, how did bug hunters become notorious? They lived up to their reputation as assassins, and almost all species were ambush predators, these bugs skillfully tracked, quietly approached, and raided and preyed on other small invertebrates, poking them with poisonous beaks, and even evolving some complex hunting strategies when aiming at dangerous prey. Today I will talk about three terrible guys in the Assassin Worm:
1. An assassin who uses a strange skill to hunt spiders
2. An assassin who carries the corpse of his prey in disguise
3. Kill the top ten assassins on the human rankings: Kissing Bugs
(a) Assassins who use strange skills to hunt spiders
Some thread-legged bugs use a very strange trick when hunting spiders: after sneaking up, they use their tentacles to beat the spiders and confuse them. After "Disturbing" these Assassin Worms can perfectly use "Ambush"! "Backstabs"! "Poisoned"! Triple combo.
The Slender-Footed Assassin Worm is a particularly slender hunting bug, and some of them are a favorite of other bugs: spider webs.
Looks like a spider, lying on a spider web, it is a spider killer
The Assassin Worm sneaked up on its feet and quietly crawled along the spider silk, carefully approaching the spider. Once the spiders approach the attack range, they gently pat the spider with their tentacles and then pounce violently on the prey, grabbing the spider with their front legs and injecting venom.
An Assassin Worm (left) sneaks up close to a spider (right)
The Assassin Worm gently taps the spider with its long tentacles, disturbing the spider
Ambushes, backstabbing, poisoning
Spiders are very defensive, and the assassin bugs spend so much time and energy sneaking, but they are tapping the spider's shoulder before attacking, why is this?
The researchers found dozens of spiders and then gently touched the spider's legs with dog fur to mimic the tentacle taps of the assassin insects. The researchers found that the spiders that were knocked were much less aggressive than the spiders that were not beaten, about 25 percent.
The final conclusion was that the thin-footed assassin worm reduced the level of aggression of the spider by mimicking the way these spiders made physical contact with their companions.
Imitation, stealth, premeditation, agitation, ambush, backstabbing, poisoning... Assassin Worm lives up to its name.
(ii) Assassins carrying the corpses of their prey in disguise
In Princess Mononoke, human hunters wear pig skins to confuse the mountain gods
I remember watching Miyazaki's "Princess Mononoke" before, in which the hunters wore the skin of a dead mountain pig and blinded the mountain god when hunting the army led by the mountain god of wild boar, and felt cruel and shocked at that time.
And the very frightening fact is that in nature, some Assassin Worms have reached this level of strategy. They will effectively cover and camouflage themselves with the wreckage of their own predation or the carcasses of dead insects.
Carrying the coffin assassin
In the countries near Lake Victoria in East Africa, including Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, and also in West Asian countries such as India, an assassin worm called Akanhaspis petax, when they are still nymphs (similar in form, not fully grown, and their wings are not formed), will build a grave on their backs, mainly composed of ant carcasses, but also include other small insect carcasses and some plants, academically known as corpse camouflage.
To make a body grave, the Assassin Worm first captures the prey, and once captured, it injects the prey with digestive enzymes and drinks the dissolved tissue, leaving an empty exoskeleton. The remains of the corpse are then fixed to the back through the sticky silk thread secreted from its abdomen.
Through observation, it was found that ants were not the only creatures that the Assassin Worms preyed on, but only the main creatures that the Assassin Worms used to build the camouflage of corpses. They actually prefer to eat spiders. Scientists believe this may be because spiders may avoid a swarm of ants so as not to be surrounded by them. Therefore, some researchers believe that the act of the assassin insect carrying the corpse is an olfactory disguise, but this theory is only speculation and has not yet been confirmed.
It is known that assassin bugs that pile up corpse mounds on their bodies are preyed on by visually oriented predators far less often than naked assassin bugs, so it is concluded that this camouflage is at least partially visual.
Masked Assassin
Another well-known assassin bug also uses disguise, but is relatively less bloody and cruel. Reduvius personatus, also known as kissing bugs, is a densely packed of sticky hairs on the antennae, feet and body of nymphs that stick to the plush and dusty shape
Finally, the nymphs of the Assassin Worms are mostly active during the day, and they make heavy use of camouflage. Adults are more nocturnal, and they do not use camouflage.
(iii) Assassins who killed the top ten in the human rankings: Kissing Bugs
Some of the members of the Assassin Worms are vampires rather than carnivores, and they are very dangerous to humans. There is a triangular bug subfamily in the Assassin Bugs, a subfamily in which at least 130 members feed on the blood of vertebrates, and these Assassin bugs are known as triatomine bugs, or the notorious kissing bugs.
Kissing bugs? Without any romantic connotations, the name is because they tend to bite the soft tissues around the sleeping person's lips and eyes. More serious than their bites is that these bloodthirsty little animals carry several deadly chagas diseases, the severity of which varies from person to person. Some infected patients have mild symptoms and heal within a week; severe patients, if left untreated, may lead to congestive heart failure. This assassin worm causes 12,000 deaths each year.
In short, nature is wonderful and cruel, loving life and revering life.
The author thanks you for your attention (¬_¬)