Did you know?
Phoresis is the scientific word for the cutest type of symbiosis in which one animal rides another one like a horse! This “horse” race may be a slow one though with contestants like a moth riding a sloth and a beetle riding a shrew.
Sketch and fact contributed by Amelia Munson
Sources:
Waage, Jeffrey K., and G. Gene Montgomery. “Cryptoses choloepi: a coprophagous moth that lives on a sloth.” Science193, no. 4248 (1976): 157-158.
Nims, Todd N., Lance A. Durden, C. Ray Chandler, and Oscar J. Pung. “Parasitic and phoretic arthropods of the oldfield mouse (Peromyscus polionotus) from burned habitats with additional ectoparasite records from the eastern harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys humulis) and southern short-tailed shrew (Blarina carolinensis).” Comparative Parasitology 75, no. 1 (2008): 102-106.
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