MEET the latest discovery in high-tech syringes. It’s the bloodsucking insect Dipetalogaster maximus, and it can take up to 4 millilitres of blood in one meal. What’s more, the donor doesn’t feel a thing, because it injects an anaesthetic.
The insects are being put to work by Christian Voigt of the Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin. He is breeding them as a way to get blood samples from wild animals that are difficult to sample in any other way.
Voigt has already used the technique to measure stress hormone levels in nesting terns without having to catch them, which is itself stressful to the birds. He put the insects into artificial eggs fitted with holes big enough for their probosces, and slipped them into the birds’ nests (Journal of Ornithology, DOI: 10.1007/s10336-005-0027-3). He is also using them to survey rabies infection in bats. “It is impossible to get a blood sample from a live bat any other way,” he says.
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Voigt removes the samples from the insects’ abdomens by inserting a needle. They recover easily, he says, as they are used to having their full bellies pierced by other, hungry Dipetalogasters.
He can even remove blood continuously while the bug is sucking, effectively using it as a painless syringe. And it has a big advantage over other bloodsucking beasties, such as ticks: “When it is full, you can just pick it off like a berry,” says Voigt.
