Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/22/watch-how-antlions-build-traps.html
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…Burp…
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I do not like the thought of creatures that inject venomous digestive juices into their live prey. There’s something just horribly awful about the idea. I guess maybe arthropods don’t feel as much pain and their last thoughts are more “hmm… I seem to have been immobilized…” than “OMG THE HORROR!”. Yes, I’m aware that arthropods probably don’t have thoughts.
But I once witnessed a spider get caught in the orb web of another spider, who then immobilized and ate him slowly over a couple of hours. It was kind of weird.
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wait…not these guys:
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Its vital juices…sucked out.
Jesus, just say it got eaten. Next time I’m enjoying a nice ripe mango or some kind of citrus treat I’m going to think…
This innocent fruit was previously ripening on a tree somewhere far away from the cold of the New England tundra. And yet, at the right price it was purchased at a “super” market and taken into a layer nearby. And then its vital juices were sucked out.
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I’m very disappointed I can’t find an animated gif of the yellow ant writhing around in the ant lion’s mouth.
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Dragged underground, its vital juices sucked out . . . just like my ex-wife, amirite, amirite?
I’m not rite. I don’t even have an ex-wife. I’m very gay. So . . .
Dragged underground, its vital juices sucked out . . . just like my last date, amirite, amirite?
I am rite.
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The point of many fruits is to entice animals to eat the fruit and distribute the seed(s) far from the parent plant. So good job animal, you have done exactly as plant kind planned for you to do.
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Damn nature, you scary.
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It’s fun to fake out ant lions by dropping grains of sand into their funnel and watching them go full-auto trying to dislodge the illusory ant.
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Someone beat me to SimAnt, so…
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It is quite different from eating. Antlion is hidden when it feeds, so the difference is better pictured by other related species:
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On crops, the larvae have been reported as attacking several species of aphids, red spider mites, thrips, whitefly, the eggs of leafhoppers, leaf miners, psyllids, small moths and caterpillars, beetle larvae and the tobacco budworm.
From wikipedia. Looking at the prey they eat, I want to start having these bugs as pets in my backyard.
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I have them in my backyard 
Apart from all the other benefits, adult specimens are also beautiful.
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