May I ask, do you want to know how the larvae of the black soldier fly (commonly known as: maggots) eat?
Would you be interested in seeing 10,000 black soldier fly larvae eating pizza together?
It is said that they can wipe out a 16-inch pizza in two hours!!
Recently, when reading widely, Xiaobian found such a shocking and extremely "useless" study:
In order to help farmer uncles get high-protein chicken feed more quickly, scientists have launched research on how to quickly breed black soldier fly larvae.
It is reported that some companies will feed the collected kitchen waste to swarms of larvae. After eating the rotten leftovers, these maggots can be turned into high-protein feed for animals such as chickens and fish that humans prefer to eat.
In this way, a perfect biological cycle is formed: maggots eat well – chickens grow stronger – humans eat high-quality meat. It can be said to be a boon for ecologically sustainable food production.
So how to improve the growth rate of maggots has become a focus. As the saying goes, eat fast and grow fast. As a result, scientists have conducted in-depth research on maggot feeding.
The faster maggots grow, the shorter the time they take to become feed — chickens get uninterrupted, high-quality protein — and humans can eat good, inexpensive meat.
To study how the maggots ate large amounts of food, the researchers filmed a comprehensive film in a transparent glass box at 35 °C to record the process of the black soldier fly larvae swallowing orange chips.
Using software that simulates fluid motion, the team tracks the flow of individual maggots to look for patterns in the peristaltic body.
Although it looks chaotic, the larvae move like water being pumped into a fountain, the study said. Hungry maggots are pushed from the bottom towards food, and full larvae are pumped up. (As shown)
Figure | Photo of larvae feeding (Source: "Journal of the royal society interface")
This "maggot fountain" allows hungry larvae to replace the surrounding larvae that have stopped feeding, allowing feeding machines to continue running. The researchers say a better understanding of this process could help companies that grow larvae scale up and convert more food waste into food.
Of course, there is actually a rigorous set of logic behind this bizarre study.
Previous studies have done much work on animal collective movement, but mostly limited to migration and little knowledge about collective breeding.
In large-scale agricultural collectivization, many detours have been taken, such as large-scale raising of pigs, cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks, and fish. It was only in recent years that there was a breakthrough.
However, these individual animals are relatively large and the number is under control. In the field of collective feeding of insects, due to the small number of individuals, it is still in its infancy.
In this study, scientists made a bold breakthrough in experimental subjects, choosing the black soldier fly larvae, a small expert in handling food waste.
Figure | Black soldier fly larvae (Source: "Journal of the royal society interface")
The larvae of the black soldier fly used in the experiment were collected from dirty dung farms, ranged in age from 8 to 12 days, and weighed about 0.1 grams.
The selected subjects were extremely dedicated to their research: they were starving for 24 hours before doing any experiment!
The experimental process was carried out separately by a single larval study and a group of larval studies and observations (600 ml, about 3500 individuals), shooting using an Ultra HD Sony handheld camera, using Matlab to complete the image digital ha and data extraction, and using a particle image velocimeter to measure the flow rate of larvae.
Figure | Particle image velocimetry experiment (Source: "Journal of the royal society interface")
After a series of high-energy analyses, the researchers proposed a mathematical model of the feeding rate of larval swarms and analyzed the results.
The first reading is the individual larvae, whose body is wedge-shaped with a black triangular "beak" at the end, 0.4 mm long. The beak contains the maxilla, stomata, and mandibular brush.
The researchers' analysis of individual larvae exposed to food found that 30 percent of the larvae did not eat, and these larvae did not touch food, but instead walked around the perimeter of the container — a mystery that remains a missed question.
Figure | Larvae's mouth (Source: "Journal of the royal society interface")
In population experiments, the larvae are initially distributed in a uniform layer around the orange slice and continue to gather around the slice for the first 5 min of the experiment. After the experiment began, the heap was roughly conical in shape, with 8 larval heights at the top and 40 larvae wide at the top. This form can help the larvae reach peak feeding rates. (As shown in the figure, play again)
The larva rotates the orange slice while eating it, but this rotation is limited by the walls of the container, and the rotation can accelerate the consumption of oranges. There is a relationship between the number of larvae and their feeding rate, and after a series of experiments and calculations, when N reaches a certain value, the feeding rate will reach its peak and no longer increase with the increase in number.
Figure | (a) an experimental device for measuring larval feeding rates; (b) the relationship between feeding rates and larval populations. Points are experimental data points, and dashed lines are models (Source: "Journal of the royal society interface")
In this study, the researchers investigated in depth how and how swarms of black soldier fly larvae eat. It is understood that the number of larvae that can eat is inherently limited by the surface area of the food, and only a limited number of larvae can eat within the surface area of the food.
When small groups eat, the larvae that are eating often rest, preventing other larvae from obtaining food. Swarms of larvae overcome this problem by creating a "fountain" around the food, where new larvae climb in from the bottom and are then "pumped" out of the top to form a feeding "maggot fountain".
It has to be said that the wisdom of these little bugs may be far higher than we think.
Finally, we invite you to watch the 5s feeding video of your larval friends
It is easy to cause a series of less friendly physiological reactions! Proceed with caution!
Reference Links:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2018.0735
Author: QiZai
Typography: White Ruobing
This article is reproduced from the academic headline (ID: SciTouTiao) with permission, if you need to reprint it for a second time, please contact the original author