Female Wasp Larvae Eat Brothers for the Good of Their Genes : Zooillogix

ScienceBlogs Book Club: Inside the Outbreaks

Video of the Week

Kunekune Pigs

Bleiman Brothers Profile

In the wild, Andrew feeds on fish, sponges, small crustaceans, nematode worms and protozoans.

Benny's diet is very specialized, consisting mainly of the interior of Ramy nuts, nectar from the Traveller's Palm tree, some fungi and insect grubs. He is also known to raid coconut plantations, and has been seen eating lychees and mangoes, which are also plantation crops.

Search

Look How Important We Are

View blog authority

Science Blogs - Blog Catalog Blog Directory

Read the super-informative Interview with the Bleiman Brothers

World's Largest Zoo and Shot Glass Collection

Now accepting donations in exchange for recognition and fame on Zooillogix!

seattle%20aquarium%20shot%20glass.JPG

Currently Featured: Seattle Aquarium from Jason Brunet of JeffTheFish.com - the official website of baby rats!

The List:
Adventure Aquarium
Aquarium of the Bay
Baton Rouge Zoo
Birch Aquarium at Scripps
Bronx Zoo
Brookfield Zoo
Cincinnati Zoo
Cleveland Metroparks Zoo
Florida Aquarium
Georgia Aquarium
Honolulu Zoo
Houston Aquarium
Knoxville Zoo
Lincoln Park Zoo
Los Angeles Zoo
Louisville Zoo
Maritime Center in Norwalk, CT
Milwaukee Zoo
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Mystic Aquarium
National Aquarium
New England Aquarium
New York Aquarium
Newport Aquarium
North Carolina Aquarium
North Carolina Zoological Society
Oakland Zoo
Oregon Coast Aquarium
Philadelphia Zoo
Pittsburgh Zoo
Rio Grande Zoo
Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies
San Antonio Zoo
San Diego Zoo
San Francisco Zoo
Santa Barbara Zoo
Sea World San Diego
Seattle Aquarium
Shedd Aquarium
Smithsonian National Zoo
South Carolina Aquarium
Tennessee Aquarium
Two Oceans Aquarium, Cape Town, SA
Vancouver Aquarium
Feed me Seymour!

« Narwhal Horns Laced with 10 Million Nerve Endings | Main | Cyborg Pigeon Makes Debut in China »

Female Wasp Larvae Eat Brothers for the Good of Their Genes

Category: Uncategorized
Posted on: April 19, 2007 8:54 PM, by ableiman

Bear with us on this one...it might get a little complicated:

Wasps from the genus Copidosoma lay two eggs into a host egg (for example a moth or butterfly egg). One of these two eggs is male and one is female. The male and female larvae then begin multiplying--much like single celled organisms--into a thousand copies of themselves inside the egg. Thus the female "sisters" are more closely related to each other than they are to their brothers, and vice versa. The host egg, however, can only accommodate about half of the thousands of larvae now writhing around within it.

Congratulations! It's a girl. Female wasp larva (right) feasting on its brother (bundle of cells in the middle)

Some of the sister larvae are sterile, and though they cannot reproduce to pass along their genetic material, they CAN stop their brothers from doing so. How? You don't know? By transforming into a serpintine shape with over-sized jaws and eating their brothers alive while they're still just a bundle of cells. Duh.

Evolutionary biologist Andy Gardner of Oxford University explains, "Although the genes for this spiteful behavior find themselves at an evolutionary dead-end in the sterile larvae, copies of these genes are passed onto future generations because they are also present in the clonal sisters, who do survive and reproduce."

"Madeline J. Stingerstein, you stop ravenously feasting on your embryonic brother this instant or you will go to bed without supper this evening, young lady!" Encrytid wasp, Comperia merceti

digg_url='http://zooillogix.blogspot.com/2007/04/female-wasp-larvae-eat-their-brothers.html';