There isn’t much in the wild that I haven’t tangled with, including arachnids and insects. Black widows, hornets, millipedes, cockroaches and scorpions are all fair game, though the more ornery the critter, the more circumspect I am.
Scientists have recently found a new bug, however, that sounds absolutely appalling.
Nicknamed the crypt-keeper wasp, it has a decidedly distasteful life cycle, according to online publication Red Orbit.
The adult wasp, shown above, lays its egg within the small, wooden compartments built by a different species, the gall wasp, inside live sand oak trees.
When the egg hatches, crypt-keeper wasp larva dig into the gall wasp and takes control of its brain. This forces the gall wasp to tunnel out of the tree, a task the crypt-keeper has a hard time doing by itself.
If that weren’t grim enough, crypt-keeper wasp larva then causes its host to punch out a hole not quite big enough for it to escape from the tree.
“After the bigger wasp is stuck in the hole it’s burrowed, the crypt-keeper eats its host from within, finally erupting from the host’s head and out into the world,” according to Red Orbit.
I haven’t seen any of these, but I think I’ll do my best to keep my distance from this member of the order Hymenoptera should I happen across any in the future.
The Cotton Boll Conspiracy 
That is a beautiful and fascinating insect.
Fascinating, yes? And aesthetically it’s pretty neat, but bet it’s got one heck of a sting. That takes just a little of lure away. A handful of bad experiences with hornets in my youth did teach me something.
Are you sure it is not a mutant politician?
No, it doesn’t sing its praises after burrowing through the dead corpses of its victims, unlike politicians.
Interesting post.
Interesting and slightly macabre.
Yes. Indeed.
And it’s really rather good looking with those iridescent clothes.
I suppose it has to do something to pretty up its reputation, right?