Wasps - Blog Posts

NEBULA'S REASONS TO SHIFT ; #14

✧ ....avoid [some] bugs....

Hey, um, I know that wasps are generally known as the jerks of the insect world, but just so you guys know, they do give a little back.

For example.....

1) They eat bugs. Yay! Less leaf beetles eating your crop!

2) They pollinate figs. MmmMmmm. I like fig Newtons. I want them to continue long into the future.

3) They carry yeast in their bodies which helps allow the yeast to survive the winter. In case you didn't know, yeast ferments grapes and is used for baking. AKA next time you have some wine or enjoy some leaven bread, begrudgingly thank a wasp.

I'm not saying that you have to like them. Heck no. Wasps are scary; howeeeever, just like the wonderful bee, they help provide us with some amazing things.

(x)<--yeast link    (x)<--bug link   (x)<--Fig link 

insects ive seen this week

1: long tailed giant ichneumonid wasp

2: imperial moth

3: polyphemus moth

Wasps are great! Some social wasps can not only recognize individuals of their own species, they can recognize humans as well and “befriend” people!

I’ve had positive experiences with the yellowjackets that live around campus at my school- my school is full of insect lovers who are pretty chill about them, and I think they recognize that at least some of the humans around them are friendly, as they’ll often land on me or share a bite of my lunch, but have never stung me or been aggressive, and I haven’t heard anyone talk about them stinging people.

There are also lots of cool wasps outside of yellowjackets and hornets, many of which cannot sting. Some of them are ridiculously tiny- the smallest insect in the world is a type of fairy wasp smaller than some single-called parameciums and amoebas. (Wikipedia article here if you’re interested.) Wasps are incredibly diverse and beautiful, and we needn’t fear and loathe them because a few of them might sting.

[Image description from alt text: A photo of a small brown wasp pollinating a dandelion. Only part of the dandelion flower is visible, because it dwarfs the wasp in size. The wasp has faint, light stripes on its abdomen, bent antennae, and purplish eyes.]

I saw this posted on reddit to a wholesome memes sub, and it was full of nothing but people being unnecessarily awful on a post trying to spread information about why these creatures are beautiful and worthy of living. (Interesting note: They don't need a reason to be allowed to live.) I got sick of trying to correct people on there who were more interested in hating wasps than hearing the truth.

Honestly, it's just exhausting sometimes.

Source: @shencomix - Thanks for helping to spread the word, buddy.

NO ANTI-WASP SENTIMENTS ON THIS POST

a signed version of the fixed chart, for reposting

Cicada Hawk guarding an entombed cicada under the back porch steps. Anesthetized the cicada will be consumed From the Inside Out by the growing larvae of the Cicada Hawk. She swoops as we pass but never stings.

Saw this guy chilling out on a leaf

Edit: someone told me this is a hoverfly

Okay, so this is really cool! You have this phenomenon where some plants grow edible appendages to their seeds to entice ants to carry them underground where they can safely sprout. And then you have wasps which lay their eggs on the leaves, stems, and other parts of plants and trigger the growth of galls (swellings) which both feed and protect the wasp larvae until they reach maturity.

The boy who was watching the ants noticed they were taking wasp galls underground, too. Further exploration found that the wasp larvae were unharmed inside the galls; the only thing the ants had eaten were edible appendages similar to those on the seeds they collected. The wasp larvae stayed safe inside the ant nest, feeding on their galls, until it was time to emerge and head back out to the surface.

So it turns out that the edible portions of the galls have the same sorts of fatty acids as the edible parts of the seeds. And those fatty acids are also found in dead insects. Scientists think that the wasps evolved a way to make the galls they created mimic the edible portions of the seeds to get the ants to collect the galls. This isn't the only example of wasps making use of ants as caretakers for their young, but it's a really fascinating example thereof--especially if you consider ants evolved from wasps at least 100 million years ago.

I had to kill a wasp nest at work so I brought them home.