The answer to the quiz from last week is: An Assassin Bug! But, that isn't a normal one. This one is! More about the one from last week in a minute...
This is normally the way one might look in your gardens. It's very aptly named! If you look just below its head, you will see a proboscis attached to the front of it. It's like a beak, called a rostrum. You can see this in the enlargement. This is like a hard hypodermic needle that the assassin bug plunges into the body of its victim. The moment it does that, it
injects a toxin that will fairly quickly kill its prey. Then, much like spider venom, the toxin also liquefies the inside of the victim. The assassin bug then sucks the juices out with the same instrument it used to kill it! Fun stuff, eh? Actually, They are very good for your garden because they are voracious eaters of all kinds of other pests that eat your plants and flowers. But, the toxin is also painful to humans, like a bee or a hornet sting.
So, what in the world was the picture from last week?! That is a type of assassin bug (found in various places) that mainly eats ants. But, whatever it eats, once all of the juices are sucked out of the victim and the bodies are completely dry, the assassin bug produces a kind of sticky silk that it uses to glue the dead bodies of its victims on its back! This is
apparently very useful for the types that like to eat ants. The assassin bug can approach an ant nest without being detected! The ants only smell the dead ants on its back, and don't know the presence of the lethal danger!
What a crazy, but amazing world! There is always something new to
learn!
