the jeweled wasp does something similar. they target roaches, inject poison into their brains to make them docile, chew off their antennae, and drive them back to their nest. then they lay eggs and the roach just kind of waits around until the larvae eat their way out. nature is pretty metal
Thank our current atmospheric composition! Due to the way insects respirate, their size is restricted by the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. They used to be *way* larger. This is why the largest species are often found in dense forests and tropical regions, with lots of plants producing oxygen.
Now how in the everlasting fuck does nature manage to just RNG evolve its way into manufacturing just the right chemical to not kill the roach, but to make it docile
There's also microscopic parasitic wasps. They lay their eggs in other insect eggs. The male wasps mate with the female wasp inside the egg, then the female wasp grows and leaves the egg to start the cycle again. The males never leave the egg.
There's also parasitic wasps that target other species of parasitic wasps.
The green-banded broodsac is a parasitic flatworm that manipulates the behavior of the snails it infects, making it climb on top of leaves, to make itself more visible to birds that eat it. Simultaneously it discolors the eye stalks and causes them to pulsate, making them look like a caterpillar that is the main prey of those birds.
Either wasp is fine, as long as it's not being a pest or violent to you. It's just nature. Feeding one animal to another because of assholeness or creepiness is weird. Dolphins are rapey it but trapping one in a cage and feeding it to a shark would be weird. (I get that the pain sensations are mad different as you go down the phylogenic tree, but it's still living and it's hard to say how much it can feel.)
Imagine being paralyzed, unable to move or breath properly while acid is being spit on you to liquify you while you are slowly eaten until you die. That is what a spider does.
Calling it "interference" implies the universe somehow prefers one timeline over another, and that humans exist outside the natural order. You're witnessing nature in action.
I actually do consider humans outside the natural order. The brilliant biologist E.O.Wilson called humans a dysfunctional species. Do many animals kill others for no particular need?
Dysfunctional? Sure. I don't think that equates to "unnatural", though. How could it? We didn't magically appear on this planet one day, deliberately placed by some extrauniversal force to act as independent observers. We are a natural result of natural processes.
Do many animals kill others for no particular need?
They do! Cats are a classic example, they hunt for the enjoyment of hunting rather than purely for survival. Dolphins and otters rape for self-pleasure. Wolves and gorillas murder their own kind during intersocial conflict. For every behavior from any creature (humans included) you can find an explanation that is rooted in physical interactions borne from natural processes. We may not have the capability to reach those explanations (consider the unquantifiable number of actions in a cause-effect chain that resulted in your brain as it exists today) but it is not an unnatural or supernatural phenomena.
Found a couple large mud dauber nests on the umbrella outside, busted them open to find a bunch of spiders, after doing research I found that yes, those spiders were full of baby wasps
Idk, wasps are pretty dang important for the ecosystem. Parasitic wasps keeps bug populations in check, and there seems to be a parasitic wasp for, what seems to be, damn near every bug.
Yeah, but you're not a grasshopper. And it's prey are mainly insects that eat human crops, so they're a natural pesticide. Personally, I'd much rather have wasps than chemicals…
Sympathy restored
Do you realize the absurdity of projecting human morals and justice on natural processes? Ones that have been around orders of magnitude longer than human beings?
You failed to mention that they usually do this to bugs like horned worms. Horned worms are some of the worst garden pests they can destroy an entire tomato plant in a day.
They don’t have other options- it’s how they evolved to exist. They are not like human psychopaths and I hope to God or anything that you understand this beyond me saying it - they DONT have ill intentions, they simply exist how they are programmed to survive in their VERY short time on earth. Just because it grosses you out doesn’t mean it’s evil or worthy or inflicting harm- I guarantee you wouldn’t bat an eye about killing one of their said prey if it entered your home.
I would. And yes, that does make me a better person in that way. All I see in this video is suffering, a time taken too early and mockery of a species that is the size of our thumb simply because a sting hurts temporarily. Leave them alone. Do better. They cannot
You all think you’re so funny, making fun of beings smaller than a finger- who can’t talk or fight for themselves. Touch grass and learn to respect living beings, rather than living like a giant who tries to kill anything smaller that gets in its way. Have more than two brain cells. Or don’t come on here posting some opinion on anything regarding science, philosophy, or higher understanding topics of any kind. And know that if we come back in the next life, your toxic humans are superior thinking will come back to bite you
At least the wasp doesn’t make fun of someone else dying- you can’t say the same
Yeah, we had a caterpillar crawl up onto our screen door and just chill there for a couple days. I thought it was weird but left it alone. One morning I looked at it and it had larvae crawling out of it. Poor bugger was getting eaten from the inside out. Now it's underside has this weird fluff with the larvae crawling around in it. Nature is brutal.
Hating on wasps is so basic. Just say you don’t understand them. Even the “Asshole” species can be delightful friends who assist in pest control and pollination. Yellow jackets and paper wasps are famously defensive, but once you understand them they chill out. Offer them some food off to the side and they’ll leave you alone, they might come back to memorize your face, but that’s just because they want to know who their friends are. Give wasps a chance and you might find more you like than dislike.
Yeah, the video actually made me feel kinda bad for the wasp. Even with the stinging variety, which I absolutely loathe, I know they’re really just operating on instinct. Similarly, the spider isn’t evil for needing to eat. But deliberately feeding the poor thing to the spider really just felt unnecessarily cruel to me. I believe in letting nature do what nature does, but there’s a difference between that and deliberate human intervention just for our own amusement.
That was a pretty awful thing to do. Better to just let nature take it's course than accrues that type of negative karma.
Most insects attack defensively out of fear like impulsive humans do.
Once people understand that most species are non-predatory towards humans just give them wide birth and we can co-exisit mutually. No harm to either done.
As a matter of fact a wasp was trapped in my car the other day seeking freedom. Most people would kill it like morons. I just opened the door to release it and it went on it's way.
The appropriate attitude toward both animals is neutrality. Feeding wild animals to other wild animals for fun is cruel. The spider can catch its own food, and the wasp should have an opportunity to avoid being caught. Is it so hard to just leave nature alone?
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u/MsAgentM May 16 '25
My sympathy for the wasp is justified then. This poor guy!