Since the sides of the pit consist of loose sand at its angle of repose, they afford an insecure foothold to any small insects that inadvertently venture over the edge, such as ants. Slipping to the bottom, the prey is immediately seized by the lurking antlion; if it attempts to scramble up the treacherous walls of the pit, it is speedily checked in its efforts and brought down by showers of loose sand which are thrown at it from below by the larva. By throwing up loose sand from the bottom of the pit, the larva also undermines the sides of the pit, causing them to collapse and bring the prey with them. Thus, it does not matter whether the larva actually strikes the prey with the sand showers. Antlion larvae are capable of capturing and killing a variety of insects and other arthropods, and can even subdue small spiders. The projections in the jaws of the larva are hollow and through this, the larva sucks the fluids out of its victim. After the contents are consumed, the dry carcass is flicked out of the pit. The larva readies the pit once again by throwing out collapsed material from the center, steepening the pit walls to the angle of repose. Antlion larvae require loose soil, not necessarily, but often, sand. Antlions can also handle larger granular material which is filtered out of the soil during pit construction. The larvae prefer dry places protected from the rain. When it first hatches, the tiny larva specialises in very small insects, but as it grows larger, it constructs larger pits, and thus catches larger prey, sometimes much larger than itself. Other arthropods may make use of the antlion larva's ability to trap prey. The larva of the Australian horsefly (Scaptia muscula) lives in antlion (for example Myrmeleon pictifrons) pit traps and feeds on the prey caught, and the female chalcid wasp (Lasiochalcidia igiliensis) purposefully allows itself to be trapped so that it can parasitise the antlion larva by ovipositing between its head and thorax. Recent research has found that antlion larvae often "play dead" for a variable amount of time (from a few minutes up to an hour) when disturbed to hide from predators. The method is effective; it increased survival rates in patches that use it by 20%. Furthermore, they appear to have maximized its usefulness—further increasing the duration is not likely