The Pugilops

The family Flagelloculicidae first emerged 1.9 million years ago and immediately rose to widespread success, becoming voracious predators of woodlice Apterra-wide. Within the group, whiplashers evolved their long, grasping maxillae that allowed them to grab and tear into flesh, envenomating isopods before they had time to react. Among the whiplashers, many strategies emerged, from the ripping and tearing jaws of the butcherfly to the wrangler's fully prehensile mouthparts. One of the descendants of the latter is a genus called Pugilops, whose prey-catching apparatus is even more specialized than any mosquito before.

Pugilops live on the open prairie, especially the rat-grasslands of Abeli and Loxodia. There is no such thing as easy prey here; thick-shelled castlebugs are the dominant local isopods. Faced with increasingly well-defended targets, the ancestral wrangler anatomy simply wasn't sufficient in such an environment. Today, the Pugilops has become one of the only effective non-pillbird predators of these armored crustaceans, employing blunt-force trauma to shatter their exoskeletons.

When a Pugilops zeroes in on a target, it draws its thick, club-tipped maxillae upward and behind its head, entering a steep dive to gain speed. At the last moment, it extends its large wings, swooping upwards after smashing its mouthparts into the woodlouse just before the fly loses its momentum. Given the mosquito's modest size (between three and eight centimeters long, depending on species), it often takes many strikes before significant progress is made. This promotes swarming behavior in many Pugilops species; castlebugs are large enough to feed dozens of Pugilops, and their odds of success greatly improves with large numbers. Once a crack is made, ten or more individuals pierce the soft flesh within, inject flagelloculicin, then follow it up with a slurry of digestive enzymes and acid. Each predator only delivers a small dose, and the woodlouse typically remains alive for several minutes as the first few flies begin to feed.

Solitary Pugilops species, on the other hand, have been forced to develop other means of securing their meals. Some have increased their mass; non-social species are, on average, thrice the size of their group-living cousins. In one aberrant and much smaller member of the genus, a shift in diet has taken place. Pugilops culicovenator, unlike all other Flagelloculicids, now feeds on other mosquitoes, being particularly fond of dustflies and other sugarflies. Their hunting behavior is similar to isopod-eating Pugilops, involving barreling towards their target at full speed. This is a much more difficult task when chasing airborne prey, requiring them to predict the trajectory of the fly as they pursue it. Also unlike their cousins, their aim is not to break apart the comparatively weak armor of the sugarfly, but rather to cripple it and send it spiraling to the ground, where it can then be finished off and consumed at the Pugilops's leisure.