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…
