Stand tall and they still get you in your Achilles foot-pad.
The free-living first-instar larvae of Strepsiptera (Insecta) are the infective stage of the parasitoid. They normally enter the host via the abdominal cuticle, and there have also been reports of entry via the egg of the host. The first-instar larvae of Stichotrema dallatorreanum Hofeneder in Papua New Guinea were found to enter the host orthopteran via the tarsi. This is, to my knowledge, the first report of entry of first-instar larvae of Strepsiptera via the attachment pads (euplantulae) of the host.
Kathirithamby
J
J
Department of Zoology, South Parks Road, Oxford OX2 3PS, UK. jeyaraney.kathirithamby@zoo.ox.ac.uk
D000818:Animals; D007313:Insecta / Q000502:physiology*; D009987:Orthoptera / Q000469:parasitology*