Watch these baby mosquitoes fire their heads like harpoons to catch prey | CBC radio

When you think of nature’s deadliest hunters, mosquito larvae probably don’t come to mind.

But new state-of-the-art footage captures the baby bloodsuckers using sophisticated hunting techniques to lure and devour other insects.

“I used the word gorgeous, gorgeous,” said Bob Hancock, a biologist at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, of the footage.

“They’re kind of an ambush predator because if another mosquito larva gets close to them, it happens — and it happens quickly,” he said How it happens Host Nil Koksal.

Hancock is the lead author of a study examining these hunting techniques, which he and his colleagues have documented for the first time. Your insights were published this week in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America.

Harpoon heads and coiled tails

Scientists have long known that mosquito larvae prey on other insects, usually other baby mosquitoes.

But they’re so small, and it’s happening so fast, that researchers have never been able to observe the phenomenon in detail — until now.

The team filmed the tiny killers in slow motion under a microscope using a technique called microcinematography.

What they saw blew their minds, Hancock said.

Two types – Toxorhynchites amboinensis and Psorophora ciliata — “literally shooting their heads off their bodies” like a harpoon at their prey, Hancock said.

“And as they do that, their mouthparts gape and they latch on to the prey, and it’s over quickly because they end up just shoveling it into their bodies,” Hancock said.

An other species – Sabethes cyaneus – rolls its long body towards its unsuspecting prey, grabs it with its tail and then immediately stuffs it into its mouth.

“We’ve never seen any of those opportunities under any circumstances,” Hancock said.

CLOCK | Mosquito larva kills prey with its tail:

Baby mosquito snatches prey during an ambush attack

In its larval form, the Sabethes cyaneus — a type of mosquito — arches its torso to pick up and eat its prey. (Metropolitan State University of Denver)

Entomologist Daniel Peach, an assistant professor at the University of Georgia, says that most mosquitoes are detritivores in their larval form, meaning they “filter” themselves from nearby detritus and suck up decaying materials and microorganisms.

That some species have evolved to hunt as larvae is “really neat”.

“I think this research underscores that mosquitoes are not monolithic, each species is unique and has a different niche, even in the larval stage,” he said in an email to CBC.

“I think it’s very cool work that shows interesting mosquito behavior that’s relatively overlooked. Aquatic predators, from sharks to insects, face some unique challenges when it comes to how they capture prey, and learning more about how predatory mosquito larvae do this is fascinating.”

“Beautiful”, fascinating mosquitoes

For Hancock, the footage is the culmination of decades of research.

He was first fascinated by how baby mosquitoes hunt when he was a student at Ohio State University. His professor brought out some Toxorhynchites amboinensis Larvae and some marsupials in small containers for class observation.

“And he said, ‘Get a microscope and see if you can figure out how they catch prey.’ And we all did,” Hancock said.

But it all happened so quickly – about 15 milliseconds to be exact – it looked like a blur. All the students could really see were the mosquitoes eating their prey after catching them.

Since then, Hancock says he’s become increasingly obsessed with mosquitoes.

“I couldn’t take my eyes off those mosquitoes. You’re beautiful,” he said. “They still only reach me that way. And so my pursuits were almost aesthetic, if not artistic.”

On some days, he says, he feels as much an artist as a scientist. He was particularly taken with the intense colors of his motifs.

“I have this – it’s almost an addiction – of iridescence, like really nice metallic colors,” he said. “And two of the stars of this newspaper and these videos have beautiful, iridescent scales as adults.”

Sabethes cyaneusis particularly bright blue and silver.

“It looks like a sports car,” Hancock said.

The biologist is excited to see what other wonders of mosquito micro-cinematography will be revealed.

He says he and his colleagues are already using the technology to watch adult mosquitoes lay eggs in tree cavities — something they do “through a catapult action.”

“They do crazy things as predators. They do crazy things as adults,” Hancock said.