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Science Memes
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FYI they are very fucking small nowhere near as big as in this image. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fig_wasp
If you look at the detail in the ghosty wasp, it’s clear that it’s just an edited image of a wasp pasted onto a fig
I wonder where they got that image from…
The first result for a fig wasp in a search engine? Nah, that’d be too obvious!
I went and looked that up on my own and I could've just clicked into the comments?!
When i came to the post there were no comments to quell my worries so i had to check and share what i found :D
Yeah when they're alive, but everyone knows you grow larger when you become a ghost
This is interesting. Regarding a sentence:
Does it mean the figs cannot mature without the wasp ? Does it mean that each ripe fig has been visited by a wasp ?
Yes exactly. They are both dependent on each other in that way.
And to add on to that, figs are super important food trees in the tropics, because they are the only trees that produce fruits all year around. (Because they have to, otherwise the fig wasp population couldn't sustain itself.) So many animal species are also dependent on the steady food source of fig trees (btw most look very different from the common fig tree, Ficus carica).
I mean, a fruit with seeds is formed from a flower after pollination. It's just that on the figs, the flower is apparently inside the unripe fruit.
Yes however it’s a ghost wasp. It can take whatever phantom size it damn well pleases
Not much of a life. Larvae can already be argued to be the main stage of life in many insects, as they get to chill around and munch on plants for ages, while adults have to fly somewhere, shag, lay eggs and croak. With these wasps, the adult male has things way more straightforward for him, and the female seems to not even get to enjoy the larval stage.