#wasps

[fractalbeehive]

Animal stamps

These are free to use wherever you want (giving me credit somewhere would be nice obviously)

I am planning on posting more so here's a masterpost so I can keep them all in one place

[the-sailing-snail]

Fuck it, I'm gonna say it: Wasps are so fucking cool. They are awesome and beautiful and important and they deserve more hype.

This post is NOT for wasp haters and cowards! "Bohoo a wasp once stung me :( a wasp flew around me while I sat in a cafe :( I stepped on a wasp once :(((( " I DON'T CARE!!!!! I drank a headless wasp on accident once and I got over it, stop whining.

Anytime I say I like wasps someone goes "nooooooo they are evil evil bastards!" I DIDNT ASK. You are affronted that nature persists in a way thats inconvenient to you and take the easy hanging fruit of dunking on wasps.

Only love for wasps on this post! Pls tell me your favourite wasp funfacts! I'll start!!!!

Wasps get pretty used to the presence of onlookers! They just keep carrying out their VERY (!) important tasks uwu I once spent like 20 minutes looking at wasps fortifying their little rooms in a wall against the oncoming winter! They were very smart and pretty and very sweet about me standing there <3

[apsciencebydan]

Reminder that fairy wasps can sometimes look like actual humanoid fairies when they hover

[futurebird]

Wasps so tiny you will question everything.

Imagine being so teeny tiny that you are an endoparasite on *leafhoppers* Leafhoppers are already in the "so small they go unnoticed" category, and you're just a little pest on a minuscule thing.

Of course the group that's most likely to choose this life? The wasps Wasps are some of the smallest insects. There are "fairy flies" that are parasites of the eggs of certain insects.

They are so small that air is "thick" to them and their wings have feathered edges are are oar shaped.

Some fairly flies are so tiny that their neurons are cells without nuclei. They got rid of them to save space. They can still think though... presumably the tiniest little thoughts.

Photo by Alexey Polilov, 2012

They lay their eggs inside of the eggs of 1-2mm long crop pests.

And... read the article to see what the males are like... they are even smaller somehow, but it's ... disturbing.

[spiderdaynightlive]

"oh hey what the hell"

bathroom's closed; wasp photoshoot

"what"

*reviewing my settings and lowering ISO* bathroom's closed. wasp photoshoot.

[morbidsmenagerie]

Finally got the full color version of my wasp zine printed!

Here's the full docx file if you want to read it!

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Okay, so this is really cool! You have this phenomenon where some plants grow edible appendages to their seeds to entice ants to carry them underground where they can safely sprout. And then you have wasps which lay their eggs on the leaves, stems, and other parts of plants and trigger the growth of galls (swellings) which both feed and protect the wasp larvae until they reach maturity.

The boy who was watching the ants noticed they were taking wasp galls underground, too. Further exploration found that the wasp larvae were unharmed inside the galls; the only thing the ants had eaten were edible appendages similar to those on the seeds they collected. The wasp larvae stayed safe inside the ant nest, feeding on their galls, until it was time to emerge and head back out to the surface.

So it turns out that the edible portions of the galls have the same sorts of fatty acids as the edible parts of the seeds. And those fatty acids are also found in dead insects. Scientists think that the wasps evolved a way to make the galls they created mimic the edible portions of the seeds to get the ants to collect the galls. This isn't the only example of wasps making use of ants as caretakers for their young, but it's a really fascinating example thereof--especially if you consider ants evolved from wasps at least 100 million years ago.

[bug-maniac]

I saw this posted on reddit to a wholesome memes sub, and it was full of nothing but people being unnecessarily awful on a post trying to spread information about why these creatures are beautiful and worthy of living. (Interesting note: They don't need a reason to be allowed to live.) I got sick of trying to correct people on there who were more interested in hating wasps than hearing the truth.

Honestly, it's just exhausting sometimes.

Source: @shencomix - Thanks for helping to spread the word, buddy.

NO ANTI-WASP SENTIMENTS ON THIS POST

[platycryptus]

this mud dauber wasp (Sceliphron caementarium) seemed distressed about something in her clay nest. Turns out it had been commandeered by a keyhole wasp (Pachodynerus nasidens), who was now aggressively asserting ownership

keyhole wasps, which hunt weevils and other small beetles, will opportunistically nest in any sort of small cavity (such as a keyhole). The existing literature on this species doesn’t say anything about taking over other wasp‘s nests, only that they sometimes refurbish abandoned nests, but I guess this one didn’t get the memo.

This isn't the worst of their mischief though- they also have a habit of building nests that clog up the airspeed measuring instruments in planes and have caused several fatal crashes.

(Florida, 10/6/21)

[ljsbugblog]

this Mud-dauber Wasp chose our windowsil to build her nest! after a bit of investigation of me and my camera, she graciously allowed me to photograph her while she worked on her construction.

in the photos above, she has arrived with a ball of mud collected from somewhere nearby. this nest isn't for her to live in, but for her young to grow and pupate. in this mass of mud she will craft several individual cells, and provision them all with the paralysed bodies of orb-weaver spiders. each cell will have a single egg laid on the first spider, before being sealed off with more mud.

here, she picks the next spot to deposit her ball of mud, using her mandibles to smooth it onto the structure. when the larvae hatch, they will consume all the spiders in their respective cells, before pupating and then emerging as adults wasps.

each time she finished with a layer of mud, she would take a moment to groom her forelegs and antennae, before flying off to repeat the process. these photos were taken earlier in the Summer, and as of posting this, the adult wasps have yet to emerge.

Covered-cell Mud-dauber Wasp, female (Sceliphron laetum).

[windkonig]

when people say "ok but x bug has no benefit to nature" I bet they can't even name 5 facts about the bug they're shitting on. so how could they Possibly know what its function is in the environment and if it's "useless" or not

wasps being the perfect example, I still get people saying "oh bees are cute and pollinate :) yay. but WASPS ARE EVIL and they don't contribute ANYTHING!!!" and it's like buddy. wasps pollinate too. they also control spider populations. they do a lot of great valuable things. but even if they didn't, they're still worthy of being here. I see SO much hatred toward wasps and I wish people would try to learn a little more about them.

I'm mainly talking about paper wasps here because these are common ones we run into in daily life and most commonly deemed "aggressive". but wasps have body language. and if you learn to read this language and learn how to properly act around them, things will go a lot better for you! wasps can be curious creatures and they may come up to observe you, especially if you're wearing something brightly colored. this can be startling for sure, but my best advice is to just be still, DO NOT SWAT or wave your arms. try to just back away or sidestep so it loses interest and leaves. swatting is just gonna make them feel as if they are being attacked and increase your chances of being stung.

many stings happen due to unfortunate but accidental circumstances. unknowingly getting too close to a nest, stepping on a wasp on accident, one getting stuck in clothing, etc. I got stung once while gardening, went to pull a weed and the wasp was on it, so I grabbed her without knowing and she stung me because she was scared. this doesn't mean "oh wasps are AGGRESSIVE and EVIL" it means you stumbled into an unfortunate situation where the wasps felt threatened and defensive. instead of being like "FUCK all wasps" go forward trying to learn about common nesting areas, be wary of holes in the ground, wear gloves while gardening, and if you do have to be around a nest, try not to make a lot of noise. if the nest absolutely needs removed, call a professional.

[jupiterswasphouse]

Ohhhhh baybey IT'S-

[creatureimages]

anti-wasp sentiment is going to turn me into the joker. "oh i hate wasps >:(((((((( but i love bees!!!!!" L + ratio + bees are wasps + name more five species of bee + honeybees are an ecological nightmare even within their native range + the overwhelming majority of wasps are non-stinging parasitoids + the majority of insects might be non-stinging parasitoid wasps? any hymenopterologists/coleopterologists/biostatisticians know how realistic this paper is? (https://doi.org/10.1186/s12898-018-0176-x) + have you ever actually been stung by a wasp?

anyway heres a whimsical ichneumonid

[apsciencebydan]

Any artists who like creating creatures and need inspiration from time to time, please feel free to peruse my bugs! I would be delighted.

For the record, encyrtid wasps are perfect creatures, and you may not have heard of them, because they're tiny, and wasps. But LOOK 🖤

Encyrtids are important biocontrol agents, pretty much always tiny (biggest one I've found is a few millimeters long), and the most ridiculous, goofy, gorgeous, harmless things. I will get people to love them.

[addicted2wasps]

Drawing of the day: Megarhyssa greenei. Bonus mini collage of my favourite non-cartoon wasp drawings. I plan on adding more as I go along. For now, this is only a sample. Drawing wasps is keeping me sane during these dark times. Which one is your favourite?

[lost-carcosa]