What passes for courtship between these assassin bugs is as intimate as the random shagging of club-wielding cavemen. In the abandoned orchards of Chek Jawa, we saw a lone Reduviid lazing on a leaf and managed a few mugshots of the murderous hemipteran. A second individual appeared on a neighbouring blade and leapt to face the first bug. Within seconds, the two were coupled in an interlocking embrace of abdominal gonads. There was neither primer nor even a visible pretext of signals to indicate a mutual passion for procreation. Were the signs of their tribe too subtle for our simple eyes or perhaps just too illusory for us who find it so hard to love without lust?
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