Lamellocytes (Wrap-and-Trap Cells)

Flat cells in fruit fly blood

Have you seen tiny fruit flies buzzing around a bowl of bananas? Before a fruit fly grows wings, it is a little wiggly larva, a soft baby insect that looks like a tiny worm.

Insect blood is not red. It is a clear or yellowish liquid, and blood cells float in it. Lamellocytes are some of these blood cells. They are big and very flat, like thin pancakes.

A healthy larva has very few of them. When there is danger, its body quickly makes lots more.

Wrap it up!

Some tiny wasps lay an egg inside a fruit fly larva. The egg is much too big for one blood cell to eat. So the larva calls in the lamellocytes.

• 1. Other blood cells find the egg and stick to it.
• 2. Lamellocytes pile on and wrap around it, layer after layer. This is called encapsulation.
• 3. The wrapping turns dark and hard, and the trapped egg can't hatch.

Your white blood cells also team up to wall off things they can't eat. Bodies big and small have clever ways to stay safe!

Lamellocyte quiz