The underwater world is complex and scary. Whenever I step barefoot into the water, I am always worried that some strange bug will bite me, after all, the water is the birthplace of many insects, and there are countless arthropod monsters bred here, which look strange and behave strangely, and many of them are terrible predators. Before, we knew a "water overlord" called the field turtle, but today we have to know that although it is not as fierce as the field turtle, it is a fierce insect that contrasts greatly with the beauty of its own adult insects - water pods (chài).
In fact, from the name we can know that this insect is not an ordinary role, in the chinese character interpretation of the word "虿" is the ancient name of snakes, scorpions of poisonous insects, and water bugs as the name suggests is a poisonous insect in the water. However, in fact, the water worm is not poisonous, and the reason why it is so famous is that it is a baby insect of dragonflies and bean maidens on the one hand, and because of its excellent performance in water on the other hand. In the water it is the presence of a ferocious predator, and it has super unique predation skills, and it is its predation skills and behavior that make me feel very similar to the monsters in the American science fiction horror movie Alien.
"Alien" is an American film that integrates space, science fiction, horror and one of the monster invasion spaceships, there is a monster that attacks humans in a way that is like what we want to talk about today, they are all suddenly extended from the head to attack weapons to defeat opponents, but the difference is that the Alien monster is spit out of the mouth, and the waterhopper spits out its "lower lip".
"Lower lip" hunting is probably unheard of, why do waterhoppers have such a peculiar way of hunting, all this has to start from the whole of waterhoppers. Looking at the whole body of the water lizard, it is a wingless dragonfly and even a bit like a spider, and it seems that it cannot find a weapon that can hunt all over its body, neither the "big axe" of the praying mantis; nor the "big sickle" of the field turtle; the mouthpiece does not have the powerful jaw of the wasp. In such a seemingly innate situation, the waterhopper has its own most unique way of hunting, and its "lower lip" becomes its weapon.
(Photo from Zhihu: China Science Expo)
Without looking closely, it is not known that the water ant also hides this unique structure, the mouth organ structure of the water plant is extremely special, this part does not belong to any part of the upper and lower jaws, which is actually a kind of freely extendable "mask" also known as the "face cover" formed by the specialization of its lower lip. The face cover is usually folded and hidden under the head, and only when the prey is close to it does it quickly extend the folded "lower lip" and clamp the prey with the hook in front of the lip and then pull the head back and start to bite and eat with its own mouthparts. The waterhopper's skill is like a human spring gun, but unlike it, it can still be pulled back, the whole process takes only one hundredth of a second, and the speed is so fast that few prey can dodge this blow.
"Take people by words, kill people by loss, take people by appearance, and lose their sons and feathers" This is the story of Confucius, and later Confucius also lamented that people cannot be judged by appearance.
The human world cannot judge people by appearance, and in the world of insects, we cannot also take "insects" by appearance. The appearance of the waterhopper is ordinary, and its size is also a smaller type in the water, it does not show its weapons like many predators, but as mentioned above, we also learned that it hides weapons and hunts them on the head very quickly, so it is a real low-key and unassuming killer.
The body color of the water lice can change according to the change of the habitat environment, usually the body color is dark brown, dark green or black, if they are in the water of yellow mud, their body color will also be yellow, this body color change to adapt to the environment is a good cover and help for the water lice. Usually water ants are very lazy, they do not like to move, because they also move quite slowly, so they often lurk under the mud or dead leaves and will hunt in a "waiting for rabbits" way.
When the prey approaches, the water ant will launch its "face cover" attack to pull back the prey, this sudden attack is quite effective for the average prey, they may come out for a walk and suddenly become someone else's mouth. And in the process of this hunting, the water ant does not rely on visual vision to see whether the prey is close, it relies on its antennae and long legs to feel the change of water wave pressure and judge the size and location of the prey. The water ant can prey on the larvae of all insects smaller than itself, the larvae of mosquitoes are its main food source, and the water worm can also prey on some small fish, in short, as long as it can catch, it can eat.
With special hunting tools and visionless predators, the prestige of the waterhopper in the water gradually increases, but the waterhopper is not only these means. As an excellent hunter, in addition to having the ability to sneak attack, it is natural to have the ability to take the initiative, although the water ant moves slowly, but sometimes in order to be able to get closer to the prey faster, it will also take a unique way of advancing.
The water bud breathes in the water by the rectal gills in the abdomen to hold oxygen in the water, and the oxygen exchange is completed by contracting the abdomen, alternately inhaling and discharging water through the abdominal contraction, the anus alternately inhaled and discharged water. So when the water lice inhales water without discharging it, its body will be in a high-pressure state, the high pressure is led to the head by the water lice, so that the water lice has the ability to quickly catapult its own face cover, when the high pressure is led to the back and can become the power of the water lice suddenly traveling in the water, the abdomen violently contracts and squeezes the water behind the body so that the reverse thrust force formed will make the water lice rush forward, the principle is like our rocket jet.
In this fast-moving situation, the waterhopper can quickly approach the prey to catch the prey, just as it can also apply this method to escape when the waterhopper encounters danger.
I never expected that the beautiful dragonfly worm was such a powerful presence in the water, and the weapons with the "alien" configuration in the movie were good at hiding and ambushing, and were also good at chasing and escaping. Such a water ant is really admirable, and it is really worthy of being a master and killer in the insect world.