In know your comment isn’t serious but do you know how wasps pollinate figs?
It’s pretty cool, the fig is actually a load of flowers pointing in towards the middle of what we think of as the “fruit”. Each variety of fig has a specific species of female wasp that burrows in and then lays its eggs inside. The male larvae hatch first, fertilise the female larvae, burrow out and die. The females then hatch, use the burrows to exit and fly off to find a new fig. The female wasps fertilise the figs in this process. Some wasps end up trapped inside the fig and get partially dissolved by an enzyme…
Some commercial varieties have been bred to fertilise themselves but in the wild the figs don’t ripen without the wasps.
To be fair those may have been normal wasps eating the figs and not the type that normally fertilise it? We have a few apple trees in our garden and wasps definitely get pretty dopey when they are eating overripe apples…
Until they’ve had a drink. A few glasses of that fermented fig juice and they think they’re all Bald Faced Hornets.
In know your comment isn’t serious but do you know how wasps pollinate figs?
It’s pretty cool, the fig is actually a load of flowers pointing in towards the middle of what we think of as the “fruit”. Each variety of fig has a specific species of female wasp that burrows in and then lays its eggs inside. The male larvae hatch first, fertilise the female larvae, burrow out and die. The females then hatch, use the burrows to exit and fly off to find a new fig. The female wasps fertilise the figs in this process. Some wasps end up trapped inside the fig and get partially dissolved by an enzyme…
Some commercial varieties have been bred to fertilise themselves but in the wild the figs don’t ripen without the wasps.
https://www.foodunfolded.com/article/figs-wasps-how-plant-and-pollinator-work-together
Yea, and yes :). We had a large old fig tree in SW France. It was fascinating and I swear they did get drunk (but not, in all, honesty that fighty).
To be fair those may have been normal wasps eating the figs and not the type that normally fertilise it? We have a few apple trees in our garden and wasps definitely get pretty dopey when they are eating overripe apples…