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Feather-legged Assassin Bug

rare

Feather-legged Assassin Bug

Ptilocnemus lemur

Habitat
Australian bushland leaf litter and bark, near ant trails
Body length
12 mm
Order
Hemiptera · Reduviidae

Weird but real

It offers ants a drug-laced gland tuft; the ant sips, gets sedated, then the bug spears it dead.

Why it's cool

A dealer-and-assassin in one body — it literally drugs its prey with a hairy gland before the kill. Nature wrote a heist.

Photographs

Ptilocnemus lemur Feather Legged Assassin I have been wanting to see one of these assassin bugs for about three years now, so I was quite pleased to find one on the weekend. It was sitting on a tree trunk where there was no bark. Its camouflage was very good as its head and thora
Jean and Fred · CC BY 2.0 · source
Ptilocnemus lemur Feather Legged Assassin I have been wanting to see one of these assassin bugs for about three years now, so I was quite pleased to find one on the weekend. It was sitting on a tree trunk where there was no bark. Its camouflage was very good as its head and thora
Jean and Fred · CC BY 2.0 · source