American entomologists studying the effect in the 1940s noted the bed bugs “could hardly be induced to move from the leaves,” and microscopic images suggested that fine, curved hairs called trichomes on the bottom of the leaves snagged the bugs’ feet.
Now, the California-Kentucky team has zoomed in even closer to reveal that the leaves’ sharp trichomes actually pierce the bugs’ feet like meat hooks, immobilizing them.
“It was astonishing to me that it worked at all,” says Catherine Loudon, a physical biologist at UC-Irvine and lead researcher of the new study, “You see this big muscular bug vigorously struggling, and it’s astonishing to me that the little tiny microscopic hairs don’t snap.”
via Neatorama
