Tuesday, July 2, 2024

Macrosiagon - Otherwise known as the Wedge Shaped Beetle - Look at those Antennae!!
















Brand new bug for me.  And not such a good one.  I learned that they hang around flowers that wasps like.  Then the female beetle lays her eggs.  The eggs hatch and the larvae are carried by the wasp to their own nests.  "Instead of eating both the wasp's egg and the pollen stored in the nest, the wedge-shaped beetle larva waits for the host's egg to hatch, then burrows into the wasp larva. It consumes the larva from the inside for a while, then rips its way out of its still-living host, wraps itself around the poor host's neck like a spiny collar, and proceeds to eat away at its victim from the outside, eventually killing it." (Insects Their Natural History and Diversity). Oh what a world! 

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