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My first thought was “is it parasitic?” And then I click and of course it is. Parasitic wasps are gross, but fascinating. If I recall correctly there is a para
by User23 2y ago
My first thought was “is it parasitic?” And then I click and of course it is.
Parasitic wasps are gross, but fascinating. If I recall correctly there is a parasitic wasp that parasitizes a parasitic wasp that parasitizes a parasitic wasp that parasitizes some kind of caterpillar.
- pfdietz 2y agoParasitism of any kind is fascinating, and is often horrific. I was on a bird walk yesterday morning and one of the participants pointed out a brightly colored black and yellow millipede that had climbed up a tree trunk. What was it doing there? I can't be sure, but that species is subject to attack by a fungus that takes control and makes it climb up tree trunks, walls, fenceposts, etc. so that as it expires it discharges spores well above the ground. A relevant SMBC: https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2331 https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2331 Parasitic wasp interactions are also where nature is truly vicious. A predator like a big cat will hunt many times over its life. It cannot risk too much in each encounter, so the interactions are to some extent subdued, the prey often escaping. But with parasitic wasps, it may succeed just once in its life. The stakes are as high as they can be, and the wasp can risk all to succeed.
- blipvert 2y agoIt’s parasitic wasps all the way down.
- mc_maurer 2y agoThe term for parasitoids that attack other parasitoids is a "hyperparasitoid". I did my PhD on parasitoids that attack aphids, but I've never heard of a hyper-hyperparasitoid, do you have any reference to that example?
- yannis 2y agoI love this type of studies is your thesis available somewhere on the web?
- throwup238 2y agoI was under the impression that it’s fairly common? The caterpillar: Often a pest species like the tomato leafminer Primary parasitoid: Cotesia glomerata Secondary parasitoid: Lysibia nana and some species from the genus Gelis like agilis Tertiary parasitoid: Certain species within the Trichogramma or Eulophidae families.
- klyrs 2y agoI recently discovered the existence of hyperparasitoid wasps much to the delight of my entomologist friend. That these things fly and have working nervous system (apparently ditching the neuronal nuclei during metamorphosis?), the ability to navigate etc. continues to blow my mind. They are so tiny! https://www.nature.com/articles/480294a https://www.nature.com/articles/480294a
- Baeocystin 2y agoWow! At that size, I wonder if it's even technically still flying, or more like swimming through a thick Brownian motion soup.
- crazydoggers 2y agoSome of the wasps have even developed a mutualistic relationship with a virus that helps control the hosts immune system. The wasps have integrated the virus genome into their own so their offspring can continue to infect hosts. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3758193/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3758193/
- throwanem 2y ago...and evolved a unique type of ovarian "calyx" cell, which acts as a bioreplicator to produce virus which the mother wasp delivers during oviposition. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12692280/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12692280/
- kennethrc 2y ago> If I recall correctly there is a parasitic wasp that parasitizes a parasitic wasp that parasitizes a parasitic wasp that parasitizes some kind of caterpillar. "Yo Dawg, we heard you like parasites, so we put a parasite INSIDE your parasite INSIDE ..."
- Scarblac 2y agoThe smallest known insects are also parasitic wasps: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicopomorpha_echmepterygis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicopomorpha_echmepterygis They're wild. They're born inside the eggs of barklice, and mate there. Males are ~186 micrometer, smaller than some single celled organisms like amoeba!