They are popularly called night butterflies or moths. The scientific name is scoops. A kind of fluffy creatures that often revolve around lanterns or fly into houses. It turns out that they are by no means harmless - they suck blood. And human
Recently, a new species of vampire scoop was discovered in Russia. According to the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazine, they were observed in Siberia by entomologist Jennifer Zaspel from the University of Florida (USA).
A scoop of the Calyptra thalictri breed, which usually feeds on plant sap, personally sat on a finger, pierced the skin with its proboscis and drank the entomologist's blood. The researcher conducted a similar experiment several times. And no one refused her blood. It was generally difficult to drive away the sucking butterflies.
“Vampires are males,” Jennifer recognized the sex of the insects that were feeding, “females still prefer plants.
Why did the males need to switch from juices to blood, the entomologist does not yet know. And does not find any evolutionary benefits from this. Unless males become something more attractive to females in a sexual sense. The researcher intends to compare the DNA of vampires and vegetarians living in other regions in order to look for the causes of mutations. But one external difference has already been found: bloodsuckers have different wings.
The news by no means shocked Siberians - at least, entomologists. According to their representative - from the biological faculty of Tyumen State University, who wished to remain incognito, vampirism among scoops is not a supernatural phenomenon - occurs. Especially in Southeast Asia, where butterflies attack buffaloes, rhinos and even elephants. In other words, for some, it is not a problem to pierce even very thick skin. Not to mention human.
Once a representative of the Siberian scoop, according to this local entomologist, tried to suck the blood out of him, silently sitting on his shoulder. But he noticed the vampire in time and did not give him a drink.
From the responses on numerous entomological sites, it can be understood that Calyptra thalictri are found even in the Moscow region. And here, too, there were cases when they attacked people. Unlike mosquitoes or horseflies, scoop bites do not itch, but they bleed for a long time. How dangerous it is is not known. Mass attacks have not been noticed yet.
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Nevertheless - be careful with butterflies. The horror that flies on the wings of the night is close by, warns NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazine. And he congratulates all evil spirits on the upcoming "holiday" - Halloween.