天生杀手：从小自带“瑞士军刀”的刺客蝇

Australia’s splendid assassin fly (Blepharotes splendidissimus) earns its fearsome moniker.

澳大利亚著名的刺客蝇(Blepharotes splendidissimus)凭实力赢得了它可怕的名号。

About the size of a bottle cap and sporting a similar metallic luster, they ambush butterflies and dragonflies in midair, killing them with a venomous bite.

它们有瓶盖那么大，有着类似的金属光泽，它们会在半空中伏击蝴蝶和蜻蜓，用带毒液的嘴咬死它们。

Now, scientists have discovered that even the larvae of these flies are vicious.

现在，科学家们发现，即使是这些苍蝇的幼虫也是很可怕的。

The mouths of these maggots are “the insect equivalent of a Swiss army knife,” researchers report in Austral Entomology.

研究人员在《南方昆虫学》上报告说，这些蝇蛆的嘴是“相当于昆虫界的瑞士军刀”。

Using scanning electron microscopy to produce photos like the one above, the team discovered blade-shaped mandible hooks with backward-pointing teeth—all the better to pierce into soft-bodied bugs in the soil where these larvae live.

利用扫描电子显微镜拍摄出如上照片，研究小组发现了刀刃状的下颌骨钩，钩上有向后长的牙齿，这样可以更好地刺穿这些幼虫生活的土壤中的软体昆虫。

These hooks also have grooves that, when pushed together, form a tube the maggots use to inject venomous saliva into their prey.

这些钩子上还有凹槽，当它们被挤压在一起时，这些凹槽就形成了一根管子，蛆虫用这个管子把有毒的唾液注入猎物体内。

The venom injector tool doubles as a straw, allowing the larvae to suck out the body parts of their victims, the authors report.

作者报告说，毒液注射器工具可以兼做吸管，让幼虫吸出受害者的内部器官。

The researchers also found that once the larvae pupate, usually underground or inside wood, the pupa adopts spurs and spines ultimately used by the emerging adult to drill through to the surface of soil or rotting timber so it can take to the skies.

研究人员还发现，幼虫一旦蛹化，通常是在地下或在木头里，蛹就会用它们的刺最终穿透土壤或腐烂的木材表面，飞上天空。

As horrendous as they may be to bugs, the authors say assassin flies and their larvae, which have thousands of different species worldwide, can actually help farmers as they control populations of plant-feeding insect pests such as caterpillars and beetle larvae.

尽管刺客蝇和它们的幼虫对昆虫来说可能很可怕，但作者说，刺客蝇和它们的幼虫实际上可以帮助农民控制以植物为食的害虫(如毛虫和甲虫幼虫)的数量，刺客蝇和它们的幼虫在世界各地有数千种不同的种类。

对于这种独特的昆虫，朋友们有什么看法呢？欢迎给amber留言哦！

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