Horror bees turn the prey into 'living corpses'

Laying eggs into spiders to turn prey into "corpses" and feeding larvae from inside, bees living in the Amazon rainforest make many people afraid of their hunting.

The parasite bee possesses this "creepy" power of the Zatypota genus , discovered by researchers in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador.

Its "victim" is the spiders whose scientific name is Exelius Anelosimus - the only spider known to have a herd life style with a large number of individuals, amounting to tens of thousands of animals.

Parasitic bees normally reproduce by laying its eggs on the host's body.(Photo: Niclas R.Fritzen / Ilari E. Saaksjarvi).

Parasitic bees normally reproduce by laying its eggs on the host's body, usually another insect. After a short time, the larvae hatch and start eating host meat from within to grow.

However, this is the first time scientists have discovered the ability to change the behavior, behavior of the host, turning them into "lifeless corpse , " serving bee larvae in the body.

In this case, the parasite bee will first cause the spider to leave the pack to live alone. After that, the spider will create a cocoon for larvae instead of "knitting" the spider web as usual. And finally, the spider obediently waited to become the food for the larvae to grow.

"The parasitic bees that can manipulate spider behavior have been observed by scientists before, but not at this level of complexity," Philippe Fernandez-Fournier, lead author of research and research. lifesaver specialized in zoology at the University of British Columbia (USA) said.

It is worth mentioning that this parasitic wasp does not target prey as a spider with a solitary lifestyle as usual, but choose E.Anelosimus spiders with a life style, this is a rare occurrence.

"This is weird because they don't usually do it, so I started taking notes," Fournier said.

After bringing some E.Anelosimus spiders to the lab, the researchers found bee larvae inside their bodies.

Researchers say this behavior change is very strong and the spider completely loses control and control of behavior. The spider will exist in an unconscious state like a "living corpse" to wait for bee larvae to be born and turned into food.

Currently, researchers have not yet figured out how to turn spiders into "corpses" but they surmise the goal that the bees target E.Anelosimus spiders because this is a good food supply determined.

"We also found that the larger the flock of spiders, the more likely they are to target them," Philippe Fernandez-Fournier said.