The wasps in the video below are most likely from the family Braconidae. These wasps make their living as parasitoids, growing within other animals and eventually eating them from the inside out. Their life starts as an egg which is laid in the caterpillar by a female. This egg may divide into many, many larvae which feed on the caterpillar from the inside by either eating the caterpillar’s fat body, it’s muscles or by drinking it’s hemolymph (which functions as blood). After they’ve completed their development, they simply exit the caterpillar by burrowing out of it and then pupate. A few weeks later, adult wasps emerge to fly away and look for other hosts.
So what makes Braconid (and Ichneumonid!) wasps so strange, and why am I writing about them on Biofortified?
My name is Joe and I’m going to be an occasional guest blogger here at Biofortified. The area I write about is going to be a bit different than most of the other writers on this website. Instead of writing about genetically modified plants, I’m going to spend a large portion of my time writing about genetically modified insects and insect pathogens.
It may seem odd to some that a blog that mostly focuses on controversies in modern agriculture would ask someone who studies insects to write on their site, but it’s not as counter intuitive as you think. Insects are a huge part of agriculture because they are our biggest competitors for food. One of the most common types of genetically modified corn, the various BT cultivars, were developed to fight the European Corn Borer, Ostrinia nubilalis, which is a tiny Crambid moth which burrows into the stalks of the plants and eventually kills them.
Biofortified's volunteer authors are devoted to providing factual information and fostering discussion about agriculture, especially plant genetics and genetic engineering. The site is written by grad students, professors, and guest experts. Meet our authors on the Authors page.
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