{"id":173389,"date":"2023-10-03T19:24:08","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T00:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/beetle-grows-termite-on-back-to-steal-food"},"modified":"2023-10-03T19:24:08","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T00:24:08","slug":"beetle-grows-termite-on-back-to-steal-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/beetle-grows-termite-on-back-to-steal-food","title":{"rendered":"Beetle grows \u2018termite\u2019 on back to steal food"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/beetle-grows-termite-on-back-to-steal-food2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In what may be one of Earth\u2019s craziest forms of mimicry, researchers have discovered a new species of rove beetle that grows a termite puppet on its back to fool real termites into feeding it. The replica is so precise, it even mirrors the termites\u2019 distinct body segments and has three pairs of pseudoappendages that resemble antennae and legs.<\/p>\n<p>Rove beetles (family Staphylinidae) are already infamous in the animal kingdom as masters of disguise. Some, for example, have evolved to <a href=\"https:\/\/magazine.columbia.edu\/article\/rove-beetles-magical-mystery-lure\">look like army ants<\/a>, allowing the beetles to march alongside them and feed on their eggs and young.<\/p>\n<p>The new beetle species (Austrospirachtha carrijoi)\u2014found beneath the soil in Australia\u2019s Northern Territory\u2014emulates a termite by enlarging its abdomen, a phenomenon known as physogastry. Evolution has reshaped this body part into a highly realistic replica of a termite (as seen above), head and all, which rides on top of the rest of the beetle\u2019s body. The beetle\u2019s real, much smaller head peeks out from beneath its termite disguise, the authors report this month in the journal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In what may be one of Earth\u2019s craziest forms of mimicry, researchers have discovered a new species of rove beetle that grows a termite puppet on its back to fool real termites into feeding it. The replica is so precise, it even mirrors the termites\u2019 distinct body segments and has three pairs of pseudoappendages that [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[385,1506],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evolution","category-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}