White-spotted assassin bug
The white-spotted assassin bug is a black hunting bug with two big white spots on its wings. Instead of a chewing mouth it has a sharp beak like a drinking straw. It is a sneaky hunter that catches other insects.
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Fun facts
Its beak has needle-sharp tips that poke right through the hard shell of other insects.
It squirts in spit that turns its prey soft and runny, then sucks it up like a milkshake.
Its babies, called nymphs, look like tiny copies of the grown-ups.
It grows from egg to adult in just six to nine weeks, and then lives for about two years.
It likes to hide in hollow tree stumps and rotting logs.
Most asked questions about White-spotted assassin bug
?What does an assassin bug eat?
Other insects, like cockroaches, crickets, flies and caterpillars.
?How big is a white-spotted assassin bug?
It is between 1 and 4 centimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Platymeris biguttatus
- Group
- True bugs and cicadas
- Family
- Reduviidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hemiptera > Reduviidae
- Lives on
- Africa
- Also known as
- Two-spotted assassin bug, White-eyed assassin bug, Twin spotted assassin bug, White spot assassin bug
Where the facts come from
- Platymeris biguttatus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Photo by Greg Hume ( Greg5030 ). CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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