Arynes are "highly reactive, short-lived intermediates that can undergo a variety of chemical transformations." The simplest representative is 1,2-didehydrobenzene also known as benzyne (figure ). The central structural motif of arynes is a bent triplebond that is part of a strained aromatic (poly)-cycle. This special bonding situation results in a low-energy LUMO, leading to significant electrophilic reactivity. Consequently, arynes are captured efficiently by arynophiles in diverse reactions, like nucleophilic additions, pericyclic reactions, insertions or multicomponent processes. Due to this broad applicability, aryne-based transformations are a powerful toolbox in chemical synthesis, underlined by their use in complex synthetic sequences towards natural products. Figure . Aryne generation relying on Kobayashi's approach.