More assassins on the radar: As many as 24 new species of assassin bugs described

July 11, 2016

As many as 24 assassin bugs new to science were discovered and described by Dr. Guanyang Zhang and his colleagues. In their article, published in the open access Biodiversity Data Journal, they describe the new insects along with treating another 47 assassin bugs in the same genus. To do this, the scientists examined more than 10,000 specimens, coming from both museum collections and newly undertaken field trips.

Assassin bugs are insects that prey upon other small creatures, an intriguing behavior that gives the common name of their group. There are some 7000 described species of assassin bugs, but new species are still being discovered and described every year.

The new species described by scientists Drs Guanyang Zhang, University of California, Riverside, and Arizona State University, Elwood R. Hart, Iowa State University, and Christiane Weirauch, University of California, Riverside, belong to the assassin bug genusZelus.

Linnaeus, the Swedish scientist, who established the universally used Linnean classification system, described the first species (Zelus longipes) of Zelus in 1767. Back then, he placed it in the genus Cimex, from where it was subsequently moved to Zelus. All of Zhang & Hart's new species are from the Americas. Mexico, Panama, Peru, Colombia and Brazil are some of the top countries harboring new species.

To conduct the research, Zhang examined more than 10,000 specimens and nearly all of them have been databased. These specimen records are now freely and permanently available to everybody. Zhang's work demonstrates the value of natural history collections. The specimens used in his work come from 26 museums in nine countries. The discovery of the new species would not have been possible without these museums actively collecting and maintaining their insect collections.

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Newly discovered assassin bug was incognito, but now it's incognita

Date:

December 23, 2014

Source:

Entomological Society of America

Summary:

A North American assassin bug that has remained hidden for over 100 years has been determined to be a new species. The new bug, Sinea incognita, is described in a new article.

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In pursuit of unknown assassin bugs

Entomologist Christiane Weirauch is passionate about studying a group of bugs that have a formidable name: assassin bugs. A professor of entomology at the University of California, Riverside, she travels worldwide in search of these insects that acquire their name from how they stealthily await prey—usually other insects —only to stab them with their beaks. The bug then injects venom into the prey's body, paralyzing it and dissolving the tissue into a gooey liquid that it feeds upon.

Assassin bugs (family Reduviidae) belong to the order Hemiptera and the suborder Heteroptera, the so called "true bugs." Altogether, nearly 7,000 species of assassin bugs have been described worldwide, of which about 50 are native to California. All Hemiptera have tubular mouthparts with stylets that help them pierce tissues of plants and other creatures. The stylets may also help them suck blood. Indeed, 140 species of assassin bugs are specialized to feed on blood. Spreaders of Chagas disease, these are the kissing bugs, so named because they frequently bite people on the face around the mouth.

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Assassin bug sneaks up on spiders

Assassin bugs hunt spiders on their webs by stalking or luring their victims before stabbing them with their long, sharp snouts.

Researchers studying these aggressive arthropods have now found that they use noise to cover their tracks.

The bugs wait for the wind to rustle the web, then take the opportunity to sneak up on their prey.

The findings will be published in the journal Animal Behaviour.

The bugs they studied, Stenolemus bituberus, are found in eastern and northern Australia. They live and hunt in spider webs on tree trunks or in rocky crevices.

The team, led by Dr Anne Wignall from Macquarie University in Sydney, brought juvenile assassin bugs into their laboratory.

They had spiders, of several species known to be preyed on by the bugs, build their webs in special wooden frames in the laboratory. The frames allowed the scientists to vibrate the webs, creating background "noise" and observing how the bugs reacted.

Dr Wignall and her team used the webs to find out exactly how the bugs avoided being spotted as they stalked their prey.

"Web-building spiders have only rudimentary eyesight, so avoiding being seen is not an issue for web-invading arthropods," the team explained in the paper.

"The main sensory system of web-building spiders is based on interpreting vibrations in the web - web silk is exquisitely proficient at transmitting vibrations from potential prey and predators in the web."

'Smokescreen'
The researchers placed the bugs onto the spider webs and used a desk fan to simulate a breeze on the web.

When the fan was on, "the assassin bugs stepped more often and walked in a more continuous manner", the team explained. They described this tactic as "opportunistic smokescreen behaviour".

"Generally, noise is considered a big obstacle that needs to be overcome, such as when trying to communicate or when searching for predators," Dr Wignall told BBC Nature.

"The exciting thing in this study is that the assassin bugs can increase their chances of catching food by using wind noise as cover."

The breeze did not seem to trigger the assassin bug to move when it was in an unoccupied spider web. This, the team wrote, suggested that "noise-related timing of behaviour reflects decisions made as part of a predatory strategy", rather than just a response to the physical movement of the web.

By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC Nature
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14836370