“i’m going to put my lineage inside you along with a virus that disables your immune response. they will hatch inside your body and eat you from the inside, chew their way to the surface, and create cocoons for themselves. your flesh will be consumed to provide them with everything they need to start doing this to your family.”
Mother, said a small tomato caterpillar to a wasp,
why are you kissing me so hard on my back?
You’ll see, said the industrious wasp, deftly inserting
a package of her eggs under the small caterpillar’s skin.
Every day the small caterpillar ate and ate the delicious
tomato leaves. I am surely getting larger, it said to itself.
This was a sad miscalculation. The ravenous hatched
wasp worms were getting larger. O world, the small
caterpillar said, you were so beautiful. I am only a small
tomato caterpillar, made to eat the good tomato leaves.
Now I am so tired. And I am getting even smaller. Nature
smiled. Never mind, dear, she said. You are a lovely link
in the great chain of being. Think how lucky it is to be born.
Wasps are great when they aren’t aggressive towards us. Yellowjackets are relatively docile until August. And waspy wasps (thin midsection) are rarely aggressive. And they are fantastic predators that are often the missing piece of a healthy ecosystem, including gardens.
I was on a camping trip last year and we were all hanging out under this canopy hiding from the sun. There were little bugs/gnats flying around near the peak of the canopy, tiny things.
At one point a wasp got into the canopy and spent the next 10 minutes attacking and killing the smaller gnats with surgical precision. It would hover, relatively motionless compared to the gnats, and when they came into range (maybe 25-50mm) the wasp would shoot forward and grab the smaller gnat.
It was impressive, I still hate wasps and it reinforced that they’re jerks; but it was impressive and I won’t soon forget it.
Gotta plant the thing that attracts the thing that eats the thing eating your things.
“Yes, Think” by Ruth Stone
Bleak
Wasps
In the war between wasps and caterpillars, I’m joining the side of the caterpillars against wasps every fucking time. Sorry gardeners.
I hate those flying little terrorists.
Wasps are great when they aren’t aggressive towards us. Yellowjackets are relatively docile until August. And waspy wasps (thin midsection) are rarely aggressive. And they are fantastic predators that are often the missing piece of a healthy ecosystem, including gardens.
But bald faced hornets are always assholes.
I was on a camping trip last year and we were all hanging out under this canopy hiding from the sun. There were little bugs/gnats flying around near the peak of the canopy, tiny things.
At one point a wasp got into the canopy and spent the next 10 minutes attacking and killing the smaller gnats with surgical precision. It would hover, relatively motionless compared to the gnats, and when they came into range (maybe 25-50mm) the wasp would shoot forward and grab the smaller gnat.
It was impressive, I still hate wasps and it reinforced that they’re jerks; but it was impressive and I won’t soon forget it.
Death to wasps. Long live the bumble bee!