This pile of dead ants is walking. Underneath is the young assassin bug that killed them, and it's wearing them. When scientists put these bugs in front of jumping spiders, the bugs without their pile got attacked far more often. So why does a pile of corpses work better than hiding?

In this animated nature documentary we follow the ant bug, a young assassin bug from East Africa: how it drains an ant and loads the empty shell onto its back, whether the ants are fooled, how the pile beats a spider that hunts by sight, why the adults give it up, who else wears its trash, from lacewing larvae to a beetle under its own droppings, and what happens when a hunter grabs it.

⏱ Chapters
0:00 Why is this pile of dead ants walking?
0:30 What's under the pile?
2:16 Are the ants fooled?
3:53 Can a pile of corpses fool a jumping spider?
5:32 Does it wear the pile forever?
7:04 Who else wears its trash?
8:17 What happens when something grabs it?

📚 Sources (checked October 2026)
• The ant bug and the jumping spider tests (Jackson and Pollard 2007, Journal of Zoology): https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7998.2...
• The dust coat, the corpse pile and the arena tests (Brandt and Mahsberg 2002, Animal Behaviour): https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2001.1910 ; (Discover 2002): https://www.discovermagazine.com/a-co...
• Hooked and sticky hairs, Fabre in 1903, and the family's name (Weirauch 2006, American Museum Novitates): https://doi.org/10.1206/0003-0082(200...[1:AODCSI]2.0.CO;2
• The saliva, the pile and "about ten times" (National Geographic, Ed Yong 2010): https://www.nationalgeographic.com/sc... ; (Smithsonian magazine 2012): https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc...
• Five nymph stages in a Chinese relative (Kou et al. 2017, Scientific Reports): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-12...
• Only the nymphs wear their prey (Scholastic Science World): https://scienceworld.scholastic.com/i...
• The adults, and the nymph that slips out of its mask (Wikipedia, Acanthaspis petax): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acantha...
• About 7,000 kinds of assassin bug (Hwang and Weirauch 2012, PLoS ONE): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
• How jumping spiders see and hunt (Jackson and Pollard 1996, Annual Review of Entomology): https://gwern.net/doc/biology/portia/... ; (Gawel et al. 2023, Royal Society Open Science): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
• Why flying adults stay light (Ruxton and Stevens 2015, Biology Letters): https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0325
• The masked hunter (Colorado State University): https://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/bs...
• The termite fishing bug (McMahan 1982, Insectes Sociaux): https://link.springer.com/article/10....
• The lacewing larva in aphid wool (Eisner et al. 1978, Science): https://doi.org/10.1126/science.199.4...
• The beetle larva under its droppings (Eisner and Eisner 2000, PNAS): https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.050002197 ; (Cornell Chronicle 2000): https://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/...
• Trash carrying larvae in amber (Pérez de la Fuente et al. 2012, PNAS): https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1213775110 ; (Pérez de la Fuente et al. 2018, Scientific Reports): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...

The ant bug in this story stands for the young nymphs studied from around Lake Victoria; the ant and arena tests used West African relatives. The paper says the bare bugs were attacked "significantly more often"; "about ten times" is how science journalists reported it. The anchor hairs were seen in close relatives, nobody has recorded what happens to the pile at each moult, and why the adults stop wearing it has never been tested. The adult colours and the escape from the mask come from an older study summarised elsewhere. Numbers are rounded.

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