Salute the venerable ensign wasp, killing cockroaches for 25 million years:
An Oregon State University study has identified four new species of parasitic, cockroach-killing ensign wasps that became encased in tree resin 25 million years ago and were preserved as the resin fossilized into amber.
"Some species of ensign wasps have even been used to control cockroaches in buildings," OSU researcher George Poinar Jr. said. "The wasps sometimes are called the harbingers of cockroaches—if you see ensign wasps you know there are at least a few cockroaches around. Our study shows these wasps were around some 20 or 30 million years ago, with probably the same behavioral patterns regarding cockroaches."
[...] A female ensign wasp will look for cockroach egg cases, known as ootheca, and lay an egg on or in one of the cockroach eggs inside the case. When the wasp egg hatches, the larva eats the cockroach egg where it was laid.
Successive instars of the larva then consume the other dozen or so eggs inside the cockroach egg case. Mature wasp larvae pupate within the cockroach egg case en route to coming out as adults, and no cockroach offspring emerge from an egg case infiltrated by an ensign wasp.
Analyzing Tertiary period specimens from Dominican amber, Poinar was able to describe three new species of ensign wasps: Evaniella setifera, Evaniella dominicana and Semaeomyia hispaniola. He described a fourth, Hyptia mexicana, from Mexican amber. The Tertiary period began 65 million years ago and lasted for more than 63 million years.
Journal Reference:
George Poinar, Ensign wasps (Hymenoptera: Evaniidae) in Dominican and Mexican amber, Historical Biology (DOI: 10.1080/08912963.2020.1818075)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @10:31AM (3 children)
Silly me, I thought the definition of "wasp" meant that they had a stinger. From
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaniidae [wikipedia.org]
> As cockroaches are typically more abundant in and around human settlements, Evaniidae are a regular sight in such habitat where many other wasps are absent, and are frequently encountered in buildings looking for prey. The adults drink nectar from flowers and neither they nor the larvae are dangerous or harmful to humans.[1]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 02 2020, @10:41AM
Yes, silly you. Wasps don't have "stingers". Wasps have ovipositors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovipositor [wikipedia.org]
As for drinking nectar, so do all the more fearsome wasps that people fear. Most wasps spend the spring and summer as vegetarians. Fall sends some species of wasps hunting for a good meat meal. Wasps often grow hyperdefensive of their nests later in the year, and will "sting" you for getting within 100 feet of the nest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp [wikipedia.org]
Generalizations do come short because there are so many different wasps.
I will say that wasps in general really aren't dangerous to most people.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday October 02 2020, @02:53PM
In a moment of weakness I broke all of the tech blog rules and glanced, only momentarily, at the article. Apologies and all that. :)
FTFA:
Let's see: wasp larva is to cockroach egg as human is to, well, chicken eggs (and sometimes fish eggs)?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @04:00PM
More than you wanted to know about wasps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy86ak2fQJM
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Friday October 02 2020, @12:33PM (2 children)
I have encountered this bug in my house for some years now, and I held my instinct of killing it.
Now I know I was right.
I'll let live any bug that is not a biting mosquito, a fly, an ant, or a cockroach, and a very few others known venomous bugs.
(Score: 1) by PaperNoodle on Friday October 02 2020, @02:13PM
My rule of thumb is if it kills bugs that bug me it can stay. Saves on decorations for Halloween at the very least.
B3
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday October 02 2020, @02:56PM
Hmmm. I wonder why that bug would want to be in your house? Could it be finding baby food? :-}
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Friday October 02 2020, @09:37PM (1 child)
And after millions of years they still haven't gone extinct. Interesting how nature works.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @01:12PM
I don't think parasites which are that effective at killing their hosts manage to last millions of years... Plus, the roaches are hatching way more offspring per egg case than the wasps.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday October 02 2020, @09:46PM (1 child)
What an instar [amentsoc.org] is. And that a single wasp goes through more than one of them, before multiple cockroach eggs near them can develop into cockroaches in parallel (?)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @01:35PM
The info I could find seems to suggest that adult ensign wasps only live for a few weeks, whereas roaches can live for significantly longer periods (several years for some species). I would imagine the development cycle of the roaches is slower due to this.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @06:44AM
See subject: APK Hosts File Engine 2.0++ 64-bit for Linux/BSD http://apk.it-mate.co.uk/APKHostsFileEngineForLinux.zip [it-mate.co.uk]
Yields more security/speed/reliability/anonymity vs. any 1 solution (99% of threats use hostnames vs. IP address most firewalls use) more efficiently/FASTER + NATIVELY 4 less.
Vs. "Bolt on 'MoAr' illogic-logic" slowing you hosts speed u up 2 ways: Adblocks + Hardcode fav. sites u spend most time @ vs. competition loaded w/ security bugs (DNS/AntiVir) + overheads slowing u (messagepass 'souled-out' to advertisers easily detected & blocked addons + firewall filtering drivers) & their complexity leads to exploitation!
* ONLY 1 of its kind in GUI 4 Linux/BSD!
(Better vs. Windows model in speed/efficiency/merge)
APK
P.S.=> Protects vs. script trackers/ads/DNS request tracking + redirect poisoned or downed DNS/botnets/malware downloads/malcript/email malicious payloads... apk