"These wasps are very small organisms, being only 4 to 9 millimeters long, but they have an enormous impact on forest ecology," Shaw said. Aleiodes wasps are parasites of forest caterpillars. The female wasps search for a particular kind of caterpillar, and then inject an egg into it. Parasitism by the wasp does not result in immediate death of the caterpillar - it continues to grow and feed for a small period of time. However, eventually feeding by the wasp larva causes the host caterpillar to shrink and mummify, and then the immature wasp makes its cocoon inside its mummified remains.
The research was recently published in the open access journal ZooKeys.
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Photo Credit: Phys.Org