Parasitic Wasps

Here in the southeastern United States, these besieged plants have actually sent up a chemical mist: an SOS to these black wasps. Because black wasps are known as "aphid killers", and some aphids are busily sucking the life out of these plants. Now, despite its nickname, this wasp isn't here merely to kill the aphids. No. That would be too easy. Like a character in a James Bond movie, the wasp has a more exquisite punishment for the aphid. With a clinical precision, the wasp injects a single egg into each aphid's body. This means a slow death for the aphid, as the wasp egg grows inside it. Each wasp can plant eggs in 200 aphids. The aphids send out their own chemical alarm systems, and the colony panics. But it's too late. The wasp has done its work. Hasta la vista, Baby! ...and we mean "baby"! The aphids face a gruesome death. The ravenous wasp larva will eat the aphid alive, from the inside out. The aphids body becomes the incubator for the young of its predator. A new generation of assassins will soon emerge, littering these killing fields with corpses. O.K. Now here's the money shot. The young wasp emerging to seek out more aphids to begin this cycle all over again. The wasp, with its exquisitely deathly plan. And yet, just doing what nature's programmed it to do.