Turning the shield into a trap: Assassin bugs use stinglessbee colonial defenses bait them

What is it about?

The ability to use tools provides many animals with survival advantages, especially in acquiring food. During our field investigations, we observed that the assassin bug (Pahabengkakia piliceps(Please italicize this Latin name.)) which is a specialist predator of stingless bees. Before hunting, assassin bugs apply resin droplet on their fore- and mid legs around the bee nest entrance. To explore the function of this behavior, we conducted outdoor behavioral experiments and found that the assassin bugs, by applying the resin and amplifie the chemical signals in the resin droplet, actively attract stingless bees to positions favorable for predation. Interestingly, these resin droplets, which originally serves as a defensive weapon for the stingless bees against intruders, becomes a lure used by the assassin bugs to capture them.

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Why is it important?

Many animals are known to use tools, but we still don’t fully understand how and why they do it. In our study, we present an empirical study of tool use in a predator–prey interaction model involving an invertebrate predator and social insects. Through well-controlled experiments, our findings quantitatively assess the adaptive function of tool use, along with its underlying behavioral and chemical mechanisms. While the role of food specialization in the evolution of resin use warrants future multispecies comparative studies within a phylogenetic framework, this stingless bee-specialized assassin bug system offers a valuable model for investigating adaptive evolution and tool-use behaviors, with fewer ethical constraints than vertebrate-based studies.

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