Mindsuckers: Nature’s Nightmare

Entomology Today October 24, 2014

 

It is as astonishing as it is sad to watch a ladybug turn into a zombie. Normally ladybugs are sophisticated and voracious predators. A single individual may devour several thousand aphids in a lifetime......Dinocampus coccinellae, is about the size of an ice-cream sprinkle. When a female wasp is ready to lay an egg, she alights near a ladybug and swiftly inserts her stinger into its underside, injecting an egg into her victim along with a blend of chemicals. When the egg hatches, the larva feeds on the fluids that fill its host’s body cavity.

 Though the ladybug is gradually being devoured, on the outside it seems unchanged…. Some three weeks later, the wasp larva has grown so much that it is ready to leave its host and develop into an adult. It squirms out through a chink in the ladybug’s exoskeleton.

 Even though the ladybug’s body now is free of the parasite, its mind remains enthralled. As the wasp larva wraps itself in a silk cocoon beneath it, the ladybug remains immobile.

From the wasp’s point of view, this is a very positive development. A growing D. coccinellae wasp nestled in its cocoon is intensely vulnerable. Lacewing larvae and other insects will happily devour it. But if one of these predators approaches, the ladybug will thrash its limbs, scaring off the attacker. In effect it has become the parasite’s bodyguard......To Read More....