High-speed video captures how cannibalistic mosquito larvae snag their prey

Mosquitos are the bane of many individuals’s existence, particularly since their bites aren’t simply annoyingly itchy; they will additionally unfold doubtlessly lethal parasitic illnesses. Even the larvae of sure species might be formidable. Whereas most mosquito larvae feed on algae or micro organism and related microorganisms, some predatory species feed on different bugs—together with the larvae of different mosquitos. A group of scientists has captured the distinctive assault strategies of those cannibalistic predators on high-speed video, revealing how they seize their prey with lightning-fast strikes, in response to a current research revealed within the journal Annals of the Entomological Society of America.

Co-author Robert Hancock, a biologist on the Metropolitan State College of Denver, grew to become fascinated by predatory mosquito larvae when he first watched them strike their prey underneath a microscope throughout an undergraduate entomology class in faculty. He was impressed by the sheer velocity of the assaults: “The one factor we noticed was a blur of motion,” he recalled. Scientists have lengthy studied these larvae as a result of they’re so environment friendly at controlling the populations of different mosquito species. Only one predatory larva can devour as many as 5,000 prey larvae earlier than reaching maturity.

Hancock first tried to seize the hanging habits of the larvae on 16-millimeter movie by jerry-rigging a setup with a microscope and digicam again within the Nineteen Nineties—a course of he mentioned resulted in a whole lot of wasted movie, given the blistering velocity of the strikes. Now as a university professor, he was capable of exploit all of the advances in video and microscope know-how which have been made since his undergraduate years to be taught extra concerning the biomechanics concerned.

Hancock and his co-authors targeted on three species of mosquito larvae for his or her experiments. Toxorhynchites amboinensis is native to Southeast Asia and Oceania; the lab obtained adults from Ohio State College and picked up instars weekly from particular black plastic cups for laying eggs. Psorophora ciliata larvae have been collected from shallow irrigation ditches within the citrus groves of River County, Florida. And samples of Sabethes cyaneus got here from a colony first established in 1988 at OSU, with adults and larvae collected from Maje Island in Panama.

The researchers induced strikes by putting the predatory larvae into effectively slides with water, after which presenting reside prey larvae with a jeweler’s forceps. The hanging habits was captured on video utilizing high-speed microcinematography. They used heat-protective filters for the new and brilliant illuminating lights underneath the microscope since, in any other case, the warmth would have cooked the dwelling larvae. Even the researchers donned darkish sun shades for defense. Lastly, they analyzed the ensuing movies to glean perception into the larval anatomy and the sequence of motions concerned of their strikes.

Each Tx. amboinensis and Ps. ciliata are what’s often known as “obligate” predators, which means that they should devour the larvae of different bugs. “Regardless of their totally different relatedness in numerous tribes of the Culicidae and dissimilar life histories, the obligate predators Tx. amboinensis and Ps. ciliata have apparently converged on an analogous mechanical technique for preying on mosquito larvae,” the authors wrote. This includes abruptly extending the neck to launch the top towards its prey, very like a harpoon—movement that appears to be generated by releasing built-up stress within the predatory larva’s stomach. On the similar time, the jaws open, snapping shut upon affect to seize the prey.

Sabethes is a “facultative” predator that solely typically feeds on different larvae; they will additionally subsist on microorganisms and therefore have developed a markedly totally different technique for capturing prey. There is no such thing as a harpoon-like launching of the top. As a substitute, Sabethes larvae use their tails—often known as siphons, since in addition they operate as respiration tubes for the larvae—to comb prey into their mandibles.

The strikes of all three species studied within the experiments took 15 milliseconds. In keeping with Hancock, that point scale signifies the habits is nearly reflexive in nature, likening the strikes to the act of swallowing, which includes coordinating a number of small muscle mass. “All of these things has to work in live performance—all of us do it so routinely,” he mentioned. “And that is precisely what these mosquito larvae strikes should be. It is a package deal deal.”

DOI: Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 2022. 10.1093/aesa/saac017  (About DOIs).