Scientists Discover New Terrifying Wasp With Giant Sting
A new species of wasps was discovered and it looks like something straight out of a horror movie. The wasp was named Calistoga crassicaudata and it is a relatively tiny wasp, but it has a huge stinger. The ugly details don’t stop here.
It appears that the female wasp uses its stinger to deposit its eggs as well. First of all the wasp finds a host and paralyzes it with the stinger. Then the eggs are placed in the creature. When the babies hatch, the host is killed.
Discovering new species
“We are finding new species all the time, but only a small fraction of them are so exciting,” declared Ilari Sääksjärvi, who is an entomologist at the University of Turku in Finland. He is also one of the co-authors of the papers.
- crassicaudata has a stinger that is also named ovipositor as it is used to deposit eggs. “Parasitoid wasp ovipositors (stingers) are usually long,” Sääksjärvi explained this species differs from the others as the ovipositor is also very wide, kind of thickened apically and strong.”
While these wasps are very scary, they have an important role. Thanks to them, the populations of other pests are controlled. Additionally, humans have no reason to be scared, as the sting of these wasps isn’t that different from the sting of bees or wasps. Usually, this kind of species have a flimsy stinger and can’t sting humans.
It appears that this horrible wasp is not the only discovery made by scientists. “We keep finding new species, almost on a weekly basis,” Sääksjärvi said. Apparently, his team has a lot of work and they”only have time to describe part of them.” This means that we might receive details about numerous other species in the future.
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