TIL: This Wasp Turns Prey Into Zombies | Today I Learned

If you see a cockroach scurry through your kitchen, your first reaction might be: “Arghh! A cockroach! Quick! Squish it with John Grisham!” But wait! You don’t need to sully your favorite legal caper. Instead, fetch a jewel wasp to do your bidding. These brutal parasites rob a cockroach of its free will before inflicting a slow and horrific death.

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The attack begins with a quick sting to the cockroach’s body, temporarily paralyzing its front legs. Next, the jewel wasp uses its stinger to stab the roach in the head, feeling around for a specific part of the ill-fated insect’s brain. The venom the wasp injects blocks the roach’s octopamine receptors, stealing its ability to make independent decisions.

All this stinging makes our roach assassin famished, so she rips off the palmetto bug’s antennae and enjoys a drink of blood. The rejuvenated wasp then guides the zombified roach back to its burrow, where she lays an egg on her new playmate.

In about three days the newly hatched larva will chew its way into the still very much alive cockroach’s abdomen, where it will feed on the roach’s organs. Shrewdly saving the nervous system for last, the wasp baby ensures its babysitter-turned-breakfast stays alive and juicy for as long as possible. Feeling sick to your stomach yet?

Now that the baby parasite has provided the most miserable death imaginable, it will haunt the roach’s carcass until fully mature, when it will spring forth in search of another cockroach friend. Yikes! On second thought, stomp on that roach; you’re probably doing it a favor.

In this week’s Today I Learned, Natural History photographer and National Geographic grantee Anand Varma shares some beautiful footage of this ghastly but amazing reproduction behavior.

More about Anand:

EDITOR: Laurence Alexander
SERIES PRODUCERS: Chris Mattle and Jennifer Shoemaker
GRAPHICS: Chris Mattle

TIL: This Wasp Turns Prey Into Zombies | Today I Learned

National Geographic

[ArtemissLuminos]

Jewel wasps don't do this only to cockroaches- they do it to spiders and usually the spiders are 10x the jewel wasps size. They also like grasshoppers and cicadas ;)

[meandmymouth]

Guess this a bit like what some politicians do to their followers except that they use the media for a syringe.

[loler]

I'm ok with the wasp but that frickin cockroach had me like😱😱😱😱😱

[raahulbosse]

They just wanted to use the word 'zombie' to get more hits.

[kimmyle]

I have heard about the Jewel Wasp. It is pretty interesting.

[MTheGrey]

At least we're way too large for that thing to actually affect us.

[frankenwolfy]

I think we have different ideas for something to be "cool" m8 ahahah

[drewcarmichael]

"Squish it with John Grisham!" DEAD HAHAHA

[lucasdodson]

its simular to this mold spore that infects an ant and causes it to go full on zombie it has no control the ant than bites on a plant stem or leave where spore leaves the brain to spread and infect other ants

[tylerabrosimov]

Can this wasp do the same thing to us? I mean it would be cool starting a zombie apocalypse with that thing. :D

[tron-]

Not new, been talked about everywhere before.

[oDydnA]

wait wait wait I know a wasp like it but forces there prey to protect the eggs then get eaten

[phillipisayev]

Not really a zombie if it's paralyzed and has to be dragged to it's death.

[Tarquin]

Awesomely Evil ❤😊 more than 1 Million dollars worth of Evil

[jupiter]

He mispronounced "cruelest".
Of course, you can't blame a parasite for being a parasite.

[vali]

just like the drug called the devils breath

[DukeOfChirk]

For coolest read 'most disgusting'