Beautiful Brutality

    For the first time I can recall, I have found something relatively disgusting sprisingly beautiful. I discovered gruesome yet goergous act of nature on Thursday, September 22 while I was walking to my house. I was strolling along the sidewalk, when I noticed odd, dark blotch moving on the pavement of the sidewalk. Curious, I bent down to see it was. To my surprize, the "blotch" was a spider and a black, ant- like insect with wings having what looked to be a wrestling match. Not soon after viewing this, though, the little insect flew away as the spider lay motionless. I thought it was strange that an insect capable of bringing down a spider wouldn't carry it off to eat it, until I remembered about parasitoid wasps.


   Parasitoid wasps are different than most other predators- they paralize their prey(permanatly or temporarily depending on the species) so they can lay their eggs on or in the host invertebrate, which the larvae feed upon until they are ready to pupate into the next generation. I quickly slid the spider onto a piece of paper I had handy, and took it to my house. It is still at my house, sitting in a plastic container with fork-punctured plastic wrap to provide a ventating ceiling. Impatient to see the larvae when it emerged and pupated, I began researching on parasitoid wasps. There are two types of Parasitoid wasps- the Koinoboints, which have only a few/one species it preys upon(ex. video of a Koinoboint ), while the second type, Idioboints, have many species they prey upon. Now if you watch the video you may think "EEEWWW how is this POSSIBLY thought of as beautiful?". It is not the whole larvae-eating and emerging from it's victim that is beautiful. That is utterly disgusting. What I find beautiful is how effective these wasps are and the unique way they take care of their young. Not only do they take care of their young effectively,  but they also protect some plants that produce a  'perfume' whenever they are being eaten upon by worms, aphids, and other pests. That's all i got for now, but you can read up more info from (http://chrisraper.org.uk/Html/parasitica.htm#Koinobionts) or by searching under parasitoid wasps on the National Geographic web page.
P.S.The plant genes that key for parasitoid wasps to come and "infect" pests are being researched so they may be able to be put into comon food plants (corn, wheat, exc.) so that farmers will have a reduced need to use pesticides.