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Time to quibble! 1.) Wasps as man's greatest enemy? Really? If we were being poetic, here, then I'd say that Man's greatest enemy is Man themselves, but this
by sbierwagen 16y ago
Time to quibble!
1.) Wasps as man's greatest enemy? Really?
If we were being poetic, here, then I'd say that Man's greatest enemy is Man themselves, but this is HN, so I won't. For a runner up, I would at least choose an animal that can actually kill a healthy human, rather than one that and annoy a healthy human and kill a subset with allergic reactions of venom.
2.) There are a lot of species of wasp. According to wikipedia, 160,000. Not all of them will sting, or even can sting humans. Fig wasps count among them. There are quite a few wasps that are beneficial, in that they predate upon insects that are slightly more annoying than the wasps themselves.
3.) Nectar is produced (generally) by flowers, to attract pollinators. By design, it's easily accessible by insects, and not protected by the rind of a fruit. The juice of a fruit is just juice, not nectar.
- billswift 16y agoNectar is also a term used for sweetened and watered down (until it is drinkable) fruit puree. I haven't seen any recently, but you used to be able to buy apricot nectar at any grocery store, and gourmet food shops often had pear and peach nectars as well (and rarely oddballs like plum or blackberry).
- JoeAltmaier 16y agoMarketing
- whyenot 16y agoMeta-quibble: A fig is a modified inflorescence (more precisely, a synconium), and can contain many hundred nectar producing flowers.
- SwellJoe 16y agoIf we were being poetic, here, then I'd say that Man's greatest enemy is Man themselves, but this is HN, so I won't. For a runner up, I would at least choose an animal that can actually kill a healthy human, rather than one that and annoy a healthy human and kill a subset with allergic reactions of venom. How about one that kills one to three million humans, mostly very young children, every year? The mosquito is man's greatest animal enemy. Actually, I think it's safe to say that mosquito is a worse enemy to man than man himself, since mosquito-borne malaria has been responsible for many more deaths than all the wars in history. Big predators, on the other hand, like bears or lions, which are physically capable of killing a human single-handedly, are responsible for so few human deaths as to be lost in statistical noise.
- simonsquiff 16y agoSurely it is the malaria parasite that is the killer, rather than the mosquito?
- DeusExMachina 16y agoThe mosquito is the vector of transmission, so the couple mosquito-parasite makes it an enemy as a whole.
- CWuestefeld 16y agoAnd the guy sitting in jail isn't the killer, but his gun? No, strike that. It's not the gun, but the bullet.
- SwellJoe 16y agoOne could view it as an accidental death. The mosquito didn't intend to transmit malaria, or to kill the child, it was just a side effect of what it does every day. Though, mosquitoes being parasitic by nature, they aren't very respectful of human right to property (they steal people's blood for a living, after all). Maybe more like an alcoholic who drives drunk. Anyway, I like your analogy as an answer to the mosquito vs. malaria blame game, but it may be impossible to directly compare a mosquito-inflicted death to one caused by a human in any fashion. In short, blame is irrelevant...human rights trump mosquito (or malaria) rights, IMNSHO, so if we could somehow destroy mosquitoes (and/or malaria) entirely in the sub-Saharan region, that'd be entirely alright with me, to hell with the consequences (some argue it would impact other wildlife, as mosquitoes are a food source for birds, as well as a pollinator for some plants, and those birds and plants are a food source for bigger animals, etc.).
- euccastro 16y agoMosquitoes are not wasps, and I'm pretty sure fig wasps don't carry malaria.