Saturday, September 24, 2011

Insects That Raise Meat for Market

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them. ~Samuel Butler, Note-Books

Samuel Butler, of course, was simply wrong.

Colonies of aphids are milked by ants and some wasps for their "honeydew", to say nothing of the Melissotarsus ants that raise insect herds for meat.

Lots of insects predate on animals by sucking their blood or eating small bits of flesh: fleas, mosquitoes, bedbugs, biting flies, and a whole host of mites, many of which are unnoticed and unseen by their hosts.

And on the "less friendly" side of the equation, there are various wasps that sting and paralyze living spiders and caterpillars which continue to live on, serving as living meals for the larvae of the wasp.

On Sunday, while digging on the dogs, Dick and I came across one such wasp that had captured a spider and paralyzed it as a precursor to laying its eggs inside.  The wasp was very blue -- this blurry camera shot does not capture it.  Apologies for the photo quality, but we were digging on the dogs and this fellow was just a side show.



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