Comment on "Save the Bees, Murder the Wasps"
psyspoop@lemm.ee 4 weeks agoIf you wanna learn about some more wasp pollination, look up fig wasps (Agaonidae). Wasps are legitimately one of the coolest groups of animals.
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Now tell me something nice about flies and mosquitoes so I don’t go on a murder rampage.
psyspoop@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Some species of flies and mosquitoes are also pollinators. One cute example of pollinating flies are the Bombyliidae. Mosquito larvae are also important food sources for aquatic and semi-aquatic species like frogs and fish.
Admax@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Indeed very cool, but also quite disturbing the more you learn about less common wasps…
psyspoop@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Haha there’s a reason why the Xenomorph from Alien is in part inspired by parasitic wasps.
jerkface@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
i mean that’s a pretty unusual pollinator/plant relationship
psyspoop@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
If you study wasps, you’ll find that they very frequently have odd symbioses from species to species, most often as parasites or hyperparasites. Some even have symbiotic relationships with viruses that assist them in their parasitism - ichneumon and braconid wasps have symbiotic viruses called polydnaviruses.