As we all know, many insects will become the prey of spiders, wasps are no exception, but parasitic bees do not put spiders in the eyes, they may also be natural enemies of spiders, such as red-eyed bees, bees and so on.
Parasitic bees like the spider-loving bee are fierce to spiders, they specialize in spiders in the spider web, they will accurately sting to the base of the spider's feet, inject anesthetics, paralyze the spider, and then lay an egg in the spider's abdomen. When the spiders regain consciousness, their feet cannot reach the egg, so they have to let the hatched wasp larvae suck blood until they die.
Parasitic bee pupae on spiders
There are many ways for parasitic bees to parasitize insects, mainly divided into two categories: internal parasitism and external parasitism. Extrapsything is when a parasitic bee lays eggs on the surface of the host, allowing the larvae to begin to eat the host from the surface of the body; internal parasitism is to lay eggs in the host body, so that the larvae begin to encroach on the host from the body.
Parasitic wasps have their spawning tubes, which, in addition to laying eggs, can also be injected with anesthetics, and even accompanied by toxic fluids or viruses. Some parasitic wasps can not only lay their eggs on their hosts, but also control their behavior, effectively "zombifying" them to help the larvae survive. Darwin wrote after studying the behavior of moth-hosted bees that they were so evil that it proved false that the Creator was guiding evolution.
While parasitic bees are not known to lay eggs on humans, they have inspired screenwriters for certain movies or games, such as the Aliens series and the recently released monster game House of Ashes. What we don't know, however, is that while the reproductive behavior of parasitic wasps may seem cruel, they are actually beneficial to agriculture, and they have saved millions of lives.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="10" >saver parasitic wasps</h1>
In the 1970s, the tapioca mealybug (Phenacoccus manihoti) was introduced from Brazil to West and Central Africa as an invasive pest. It quickly spread to cassava fields, causing up to 80% of crop losses. Cassava is a major food crop in Africa because of its drought resistance. The invasion of whitefly threatens the food base of 200 million people.
Parasitic wasps that lay eggs on the inner bodies of an aphid
Hans Rudolf Herren, a Swiss entomologist who conducts research in the area, discovered a parasitic wasp that parasitizes a mealybug. This parasitic wasp is less harmful to sub-Saharan plant species. After raising and raising funds for the parasitic bees, Heron purchased the plane, coordinated the strategic airdrop, and released parasitic bee eggs on the ground in areas affected by the whiteflies. In these places, parasitic wasps grow and spread on their own, reducing the number of mealybugs to controllable levels over the years.
Parasitic wasps that lay eggs into beetles
The effort has saved some 20 million lives, billions of tons of crops, and avoided overuse of pesticides. For his efforts, Heron received the World Food Prize in 1995.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="16" > biological control hero</h1>
Biological control is the use of a biological organism to control pests, and the above examples are far from the only successful cases of parasitic bees as biological control. There are countless successful cases of parasitic wasps in China's agriculture against many crop pests, and there are many success stories around the world.
For example, the potential use of the Japanese samurai wasp (Trissolcus japonicus) against brown-spotted diving flies is also being studied. Brown-spotted diving flies pose a threat to many crops in the continental United States. However, the samurai wasp "preemptively" entered the possible invasion of brown-spotted flies on a large scale, "waiting" to resist the invasion of brown-spotted flies.
Parasitic wasps are even used to prevent moths from destroying historical sites and artifacts. In Canada, at least four species of parasitic wasps have been released to control emerald ash borer, the moths that cause pest threats throughout Canadian forests.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="22" > pros and cons</h1>
Biological control has several advantages over pesticides. As evidenced by the samurai wasps, populations can grow and spread on their own, while pesticides often require humans to spread. Organisms can persist for long periods of time without human intervention, while pesticides often need to be reused. Pests can also evolve insecticide-resistant abilities over 20 generations, while insects used for biological control can evolve to cope with pest defenses.
But biological control is not without its problems, and new invasive species are sometimes introduced to deal with existing harmful species. It is difficult to predict the impact of a new species on an ecosystem that is not prepared. For example, the sugarcane toad was introduced to Australia, where it ate several pests, and later this poisonous toad was accidentally eaten by some native species, destroying many other parts of the local ecosystem. In the United States, the yellow mad ants were introduced in order to eliminate the red fire ants, and later the red fire ants were eliminated, and the yellow mad ants became a more difficult pest for people to deal with.
But parasitic species may avoid some of these problems because, unlike carnivores, they are usually limited to a single or very small number of host species, so they are less likely to deviate from their targets and affect species other than expected. Given that most agricultural pests are insects, and that most pests are targets of at least one species of parasitic bee (an estimated 750,000 species of parasitic bees in the world), this provides a wealth of options for studying safe and effective pest management.
Therefore, the breeding methods of parasitic bees seem "very unjust" and cruel, but in fact they are good for agriculture, they indirectly or directly guard the crops of countless farmers and save tens of millions of people.