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Masked Hunter

Reduvius personatus

Description:

This tiny creature was spotted in my living room on a table with the same color as itself. Has long antenna and really long hind legs. It's about 3-4 mm. It's body looks like is made of tinny dust or sand particles.

Habitat:

Urban, house

Notes:

Masked hunter is an insect, belonging to the assassin bug (Reduviidae) family. The name refers to the fact that its nymph camouflages itself with dust. The masked hunter is a predator of small arthropods, including woodlice, lacewings, earwigs, and bed bugs. Although they do not feed on human blood, masked hunters can bite humans in self-defence when mishandled.

1 Species ID Suggestions

suzmonk
suzmonk 10 years ago
Masked Hunter
Reduvius personatus Reduvius personatus


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9 Comments

FaredinAliyevski
FaredinAliyevski 10 years ago

Yea crazy smart creature :)

Jopy
Jopy 10 years ago

Wow, it looks great!

FaredinAliyevski
FaredinAliyevski 10 years ago

You suggestion looks correct I just need to check if there are similar species of that genus. I guess it doesn't look like the one on Wikipedia because they can collect different colored dust particles which gives them a different color so should be the same species but I will work on it. It's amazing species.

suzmonk
suzmonk 10 years ago

My pleasure ... fascinating, nice spotting!

suzmonk
suzmonk 10 years ago

Not 100 percent sure on my suggestion. If this is right (and the Wikipedia photo doesn't look much like it, try Google images) this is a kind of Assassin Bug. The immature insects have a sticky surface that collects dust and lint, masking them. What do you think?

FaredinAliyevski
FaredinAliyevski 10 years ago

Wow thanks a lot Suzanne.

suzmonk
suzmonk 10 years ago

Wow ... really interesting.

FaredinAliyevski
FaredinAliyevski 10 years ago

It's definitely part of its body.

suzmonk
suzmonk 10 years ago

Fared, could you tell if the "dust" is part of the insect ... or whether it had rolled around in something that stuck to it?

FaredinAliyevski
Spotted by
FaredinAliyevski

Region Hovedstaden, Denmark

Spotted on Jul 19, 2013
Submitted on Jul 21, 2013

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