HOW NON-STICK BUGS EVADE NATURAL FLY PAPER

A fly making buzzing sounds inside the house is irritating. However, there are other things more annoying than this. People from South Africa had a rather uncommon answer towards this problem. These people would gather a cluster of leaves of the Roridula gorgonias. These pests, which could be observed meticulously with a boom microscope would soon become bewitched towards the lustrous sticking mists on the hairs of the leaves. Needless to say, the said pests would then become a victim of the typical flypaper. Yet, such was not considered to be the cessation of the anecdote. According to the original article, every Roridula gorgonias was a house of shelter of the Pameridea roridulae or mirid bugs. These kinds of bugs would nourish on these trapped insects. Such could be investigated and examined with a boom microscope. Also, these bugs would escape from the sticky grasp of their hosts.

Dagmar Voigt as well as Stanislav Gorb both were affiliated with Max-Planck Institute for Metals Research in Germany. The two determined to study on the bugs that were evidently non-sticking in order to know how they had gotten away from the grasp of Roridula gorgonias. Also, the two researchers made examinations on these non-sticking mirid bugs. They did this with the help of a boom microscope, among other tools. First, they enveloped one bug inside a leaf. However, it greatly surprised the researchers that after unrolling, “the bug jumped up and ran away!” In other words, it was very clear that the said bug was totally non-sticking. The next thing they did was examined the surface of the said mirid bug through flattening one bug against the glass slide. Then, they would also check on the microscope’s slide to view whether they were coated with a special coating. It appeared that the bugs were covered with one greasy fluid. An explanation was given by Voigt that each and every bug was coated with grease so the question of what made such surface of the mirid bug more non-sticking compared to the other coatings of insects was posted.

Also, as the experiments flooded in, it was realized that the coating of the mirid bug was about thirty times more concentrated compared to the blowfly of which they first made a comparison. They impressed one adhesive hair against one piece of the cuticle of the mirid bug. The researchers noticed that the said glue appeared to be running like fluid above the viscous greasy exterior. But when they view at the hair of Roridula gorgonias which came in contact with one blowfly cuticle section, the said glue became a diverse huge lump which appeared like gel having edges which were well-defined. Such greasy covering of the aforementioned mirid bug suggested disruption of the glue, prohibiting such from sticking towards the surface of the insect. They eradicated the shielding layer of the bug through washing it with cold chloroform. They saw that said glue cleaved as powerfully towards the bugs like the other insects.

Other significant information can be found in the original article