In the world of espionage, disguises and deception are essential. But humans aren’t the only ones with a talent for undercover operations. A newly discovered blow fly larva in Morocco may just be nature’s best spy. This little larva has taken infiltration to an entirely new level—sneaking into termite colonies by disguising itself as one of them.
How exactly do the fly larvae do it? Well, turns out that it takes quite a bit of work to pull it off.
See, Termites are not exactly welcoming to intruders. Soldier termites quickly dismember anything unfamiliar that dares to enter their nest. The trick, then, to nature’s best spies, is their butt, which is shaped just like a termite’s head—and even features fake eyes and antennae-like tentacles they can use to trick their new roommates. But it doesn’t stop there. The larvae also appear to mimic the scent of the termites, too.
These crafty little bugs hide so well, in fact, that they have managed not only to survive inside the colony but also to be accepted and even cared for by their hosts as if they were real termites. They even move like real termites.
With this natural set of disguises, the larvae fool their hosts into accepting it as one of their own—even preening it and feeding it, completely unaware of the deception. But what’s even more intriguing about nature’s best spies is the fact that they appear to be an exceptionally rare species—something scientists have never seen before.
While that last bit isn’t exactly the most surprising—the world is huge, and we’re always discovering new species hiding at the bottom of the ocean or in dark holes—the researchers only found these pesky bugs because they stumbled upon a termite mound with three unusual larvae inside.
Intrigued, they kept looking and only managed to find two more, despite attempting to find them hundreds of times. Perhaps they don’t all succeed at their deception, or perhaps there is something more intriguing at play here.
Either way, the researchers were further intrigued by nature’s best little spies when they took them to the lab, hoping to discover what they would look like when they grew into adult flies. However, the larvae never metamorphosed into adults, leaving the scientists with yet even more questions, which they’ve outlined in a study featured in Current Biology.
