{"id":6204,"date":"2023-12-20T14:00:45","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T14:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/?p=6204"},"modified":"2026-08-23T10:39:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T10:39:23","slug":"2023-12-the-armored-centipede-hunter-of-la-perla-en","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/posts\/2023-12-the-armored-centipede-hunter-of-la-perla-en\/","title":{"rendered":"Immune to cyanide: The armored centipede hunter of La Perla"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meet the millipede assassin bug (<em>Rhiginia bimaculata<\/em>), a fascinating predatory insect found across Central and South America. Living up to its grim name, this bug\u2014along with its close cousins in the genus <em>Rhiginia<\/em>\u2014is a highly specialized executioner of millipedes. Hunting millipedes is a dangerous game, as they are famous for oozing foul-tasting, highly toxic defense chemicals like cyanide. To bypass this, <em>Rhiginia<\/em> assassin bugs have developed immunity to these toxins. They overcome their prey&#8217;s tough, armored body plates by driving their sharp stylet directly into the vulnerable, soft membranes between the segments. Instead of a simple bite, the bug injects a cocktail of paralyzing salivary enzymes that liquefies the millipede&#8217;s internal tissues from the inside out. Once the prey is neutralized, the bug slurps up its melted meal via extraoral digestion. I came across this ultra-specialized predator during one of my many visits to the La Perla protected forest in the Santo Domingo province of Ecuador.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meet the millipede assassin bug (Rhiginia bimaculata), a fascinating predatory insect found across Central and South America. Living up to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"countries":[74,73],"order-category":[669,60,42],"class_list":["post-6204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predators","countries-ecuador","countries-south-america","order-category-insects-true-bugs-assassin-bugs","order-category-insects","order-category-insects-true-bugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6209,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6204\/revisions\/6209"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6204"},{"taxonomy":"countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/countries?post=6204"},{"taxonomy":"order-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/order-category?post=6204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}