By Emily Herwitz
You may never know it by looking at an adult offspring like a dragon fly, but its wingless larvae – food machines the size of huge, venomous jaws – spread deadly sand traps to catch small insects, including ants. Now, scientists know exactly how they do it: as the unruly prey falls into its pit, an antelope at the bottom uses its head to carve a sand blizzard on a funnel-shaped slide, creating a miniland slide that traps the unfortunate insect. . Its doom. Scientists say that pits are a feat of engineering and physics.
To figure out how larvae create such effective difficulties, German scientists used high-speed videography to capture lab-borne ants in small, sand-filled terrariums and lab-borne antelons in small crickets (see video above). The researchers then maintained their own artificial sand trap and found that the larvae were able to emerge from the prey pit when the sand was not moving.
By comparing decades-old biological observations with engineering models Dello, the researchers found that by hitting sand grains, antilons constantly maintain the “right angle” of the pit – the angle as far as possible before the sand’s slope begins to slide. Sandstorms not only disrupt hunting, but they also maintain the geometry of the sand traps and ensure that the antelope will not bury themselves, the team said in a print release. bioRxiv.
The new study suggests that antelope larvae should retain their nets to keep them functioning – and catch enough prey for 1 to 3 years before turning into attractive, less lethal adults.
