News Animals

This tool-wielding assassin turns its prey’s defenses into a trap

Pahabengkakia piliceps hunts stingless bees by employing a chemical lure at hive entrances

A spiderlike assassin bug holds a just-caught bee as it perches at the top of a waxy tube that functions as an entrance to a beehive. A handful of small bees climb in and around it.

An assassin bug (Pahabengkakia piliceps) hunts stingless bees at the entrance of their nest.

Zhaoyang Chen

By Siddhant Pusdekar

Add a little-known species of assassin bugs to the list of animals that can fashion and wield tools. And true to their name, the insects use that tool to draw their prey into an ambush, researchers report May 12 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.