Fig Wasp

Description

Among the largest groups of insects, is the Hymenoptera, which includes insects, bees, wasps, and fig wasps among others include fig wasps. Hymenopterans are classified as insects because they have a body made up of three parts: a head, a thorax, and an abdomen. The head has one pair of antennae, the thorax has three pairs of referred, and the abdomen is made up of 11 segments but has neither legs nor wings. Hymenopterans are classified as real insects, and one of the ways they differ from all other arachnids is by possessing plectognaths, or visible, mouthparts. Both figs and wasps have undergone an astonishing diversity of coevolution that neither species can survive without the other.

Appearance

Every fig species uses its wasp type to fertilize it, and each type of wasp cross-pollinated only one type of fig. Both figs and wasps have undergone an astonishing diversity of coevolution that neither species can survive without the other. Fig Although wasps lack a sting or venom, figs probably contain wasp proteins.

Life Cycle

A caprifig, a wild, uneatable fig, is a good example of the fig wasp life cycle. Wasps develop from eggs laid inside the fig’s blossoming structure, known as the syconium, which resembles a fruit very substantially. The actual blooms themselves are contained within the syconium. One of the blossoms produces a gall-like structure rather than a seed when a wasp egg is laid in it. As blind, wingless male wasps exit from the galls, look for one or more galls that contain a female, and when they locate one, they gnaw a hole in it so they can mate before the female has even begun to hatch. The male then frequently excavates a tunnel enabling the female to escape. After spending their entire life inside the fig, the male finally passes away. Because she needs to lay her eggs in a different fig, the female exits from her gall later and moves toward the underground tunnel or fig’s eye (the area opposite the stem end). She leaves after passing many flowers and comes out covered in pollen. It travels into the woods to fertilize another fig and lay the eggs for the next generations of fig wasps during her brief adult life (as little as two days).

Habits

Female fig wasps move from fig to fig in search of an appropriate fig where they can effectively lay their eggs. There may be more than one foundress per fig; these female wasps are referred to as foundresses. The foundress pollinates the fig by properly laying in style and bringing pollen from her original fig with her.