Similar to the ants, "Z. annulosus" normally lives on younger "H. physophora" individuals, where the females lay eggs on the stem. As they begin to develop, the young bugs will live among the trichomes of the stem and hunt on the leaves of the plant. The relationship between the assassin bug and the plant acts independently from that between the ants and the plant. One difference between the two relationships, however, is that the assassin bugs do not take any food source from the plant like the ants do.