Just beneath the petals of this  flower, a brutal murder is in progress.

This was the victim, a few  minutes earlier: a caterpillar.

Before it got whacked, it was on  its way to becoming an owlet moth.

And this is the perpetrator.

Pselliopus  spinicollis, aka the assassin bug.

It dispatches its victims with this sharp weapon.

When it’s not using it, it keeps  it folded up, like a switchblade.

Let’s review that crime footage again, shall we?

Yep, the assassin bug is definitely the  hit man.

But did it have an accomplice?

The scene of the crime is this tarweed.

Pretty,   right?

But what are these glossy  droplets all over the place?

A few nights back, this midge got trapped in them.

So did this other tiny fly.

Turns out, the tarweed lured them  with these sweet, lemony droplets.

This plant is an insect graveyard.

Those bodies are a bribe for the assassin bugs,   so they’ll take care of the  plant’s caterpillar problem.

See, the caterpillars eat its flowers.

No  flowers, no pollen.

No pollen, no reproduction.

Now that they’re on the  tarweed, the assassin bugs mate   and lay an egg or two right next to the cadavers,   so their offspring have  something to eat when they hatch.

Then they get to work on  that job for the tarweeds.

The bigger caterpillars put up a fight.

The little ones, they’ll try to make themselves  scarce, dangling down on a line of silk.

But plenty of them end up like  our murder victim.

Sucked dry.

With the caterpillars out of the way,  the tarweed mastermind can hang onto