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Day 46: Acanthaspis Petax


These little guys, Acanthaspis Petax, have found a way to confuse predators by carrying the dead carcasses of ants on their back. It's a type of assassin bug that can be found in Malaysia and East Africa. Assassin bugs kill it's prey by injecting saliva with it's proboscis that causes paralysis and dissolves tissue. They then suck out the innards. What makes this type of assassin bug special is that is can carry up to 20 dead ants at a time binding them together with a sticky excretion to cluster them together. Their predator, the jumping spider, relies on its eye sight to prey on these insects. Scientists have found that the spiders attacked the bugs without the carcass ball ten times more than ones that carried the ant cluster. They believe that the visual form of the insect confuses the spider to not recognize it as prey.


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