And also the wasps that hatch are brothers and sisters… next time I’m offered figs, I’ll tell them to keep their inbred fruit to themselves 😂 this spoiled figs for me :(
It's also interesting that the fig fully digests the wasp body, like a carnivorous plant, to utilize nutrients... So even though figs are basically wasp breeding grounds, there are no remnants of the wasp in the harvested fruit (in the vaaaaast majority of cases, I'm sure there are outliers)
@@EikottXDThe joke is that eating a fig presumably would not be vegan due to it containing a wasp. Come to think on it, what is the rule for carnivorous plants?
Just to be clear, the figs dissolve and use the wasp's matter to make fig-matter. By the time we eat them, the wasp is not even a thing, anymore. It is similar to using cow-poo for corn. The corn isn't poo. The fig isn't wasp.
And the wasps are fig (seeing how they eat off the fig as larvae and almost nothing as adult wasps), just like the tiny grubs in cherries are 99,9% cherry
don’t worry everyone, most commercially grown figs are grown without the need for the fig wasp and there are a lot of varieties that don’t require them… you can also trick a fig tree into having its fruits ripen without the need for the wasps (some areas where figs are not native to don’t have the wasps anyway, so home growers usually pick a variety that can produce fruit without the need for a wasp)… so in conclusion the craziest thing about eating most figs is that you’re actually eating flowers
This is actually incorrect, fig wasps can only reproduce in caprifigs (the inedible wild type form of figs that have both male and female flowers), the edible figs we eat are strictly female and can be polinated but the fig wasp cannot reproduce inside of them. In most temperate climates, the fig wasp is absent and so if you are in the US for example, localy grown figs are persistent varieties (that can set fruit without polination) and have never seen a fig wasp...
@@zakirreshi6737 most things are not pollinated by an insect crawling into the edible part of the plant, laying eggs, mating and dieing all before they are eaten. Most pollinators pollinate the flower outside of the edible part of the plant.
Worth mentioning that almost all commercial figs are pollinated without the use of wasps. So no, you're not eating wasps, or even their digested remains.
I used to eat figs fresh off the tree in the garden, and they were delish! But now I look like Jeff Goldblum in the second half of The Fly and I can't work near hydraulic presses.
Actually commercial figs are parthenocarpic, so no pollination at all. Pollination requires male caprifigs, which are basically inedible and rarely grown.
Sibling incest comes up disturbingly often in small parasitoid wasps. Some gall making wasps have alternating generations of parthenegenetic and sexual offspring, and many parasitoid wasps are completely parthenogenetic and males don't exist. Either wasp reproduction is weird.
So, all fig wasps could be descended from a single wasp that decided, "I'm gonna give birth in this fig." Then the babies didn't realize there were other wasps besides their siblings, mated, escaped, then decided they didn't like life outside of the fig and each found a new one to give birth in. Edit: correcting autocorrect
My life was totally fine without knowing this. Thanks a lot Steve. Now I have to go ruin my kids lives and tell them what I've really been putting in their lunches.
It’s not like you’re eating the wasp. We fertilize field crops with manure, but you don’t think of eating corn, wheat, or anything like that as eating animal poop do you?
Ye, and those male fig wasps? Well, you don't need all of them to produce offspring, so they from the birth becoming killing machines with few, but very important roles they have to do in those few days they get to live: To kill, to mate, to die.
Remember, not all figs have wasps in them. Some varieties - including many grown for the supermarkets - don't need to be pollinated by fig wasps. Instead, they're sprayed with certain hormones to make the fruit ripen or they're simply a type of fig that doesn't need pollination.
This wasn't mentioned, but the males mature first, impregnate the females before they crawl, and then dig out of the fruit with their mandibles for them and go die. A really strange and accelerated life.
Yeah really I didn't even think about that, don't most wasp Queens make males to mate with other Queens and such? This is literally sexual asexual reproduction
not sure if there is any Chinese here mentioned it already. A Fig is called 無花果 and is translated as "Flowerless Fruit". Just find it ironic how a "flowerless" fruit is full of flowers.
Well, it's actually just more accurate. Fruits typically are flowers before they are fruit. So an apple tree will go from being full of flowers to being full of fruit, as the flowers turn into the fruit. Figs don't do this, and just go right into being figs.
Turns out lots of plants are partially carnivorous. I read one time that somebody was studying the effects of nematodes on one of the stonefruit trees, I think it was peaches, and they discovered that the tree's roots actually had tiny little harpoons on them that were eating the nematodes!
Most things are known by only a few people. Human knowledge reserve is so vast that it's pretty much impossible for it to be any other way. You can have a PhD in a field of science and you will still know less than 1% of your own field.
fun fact actually the fig co evolved with the wasps, they have developed a specific kind of inflorescence where they have the fruit like think witha hole in it, the wasps actlualy enters the fruit like thing, inside it has numerous small flowers . they have male flowers specificaly on the top so that when wasps enter the fruit it brushes on the pollen and the wasps lay eggs ina dpecial type of flower called gall flower whch is a premature flower with no involvment in reproduction, the wasps pollinates the fruit and it dies inside the fruit not being abloe to come out, then the baby wasps grows and eat those flowers called gall flowers and grow and come out of the fully grown fruit, babies are small so they can easily og out. what a beautiul example of nature I ABSOUTELY LOVE IT . STEVE YOU CAN MAKE A FULL VIDEO ON THIS ACTUALLY IT IS NOT THAT SIMPLE. love you man
"wasp" is actually the family or genus for all the insects we colloquially call bees, wasps, hornets, etc. Many insects we call "bees" aren't more closely related to each other than they are to various "wasps". What I mean is, you could call it a "fig bee"; the naming is random
NONAGON INFINITY NONAGON INFINITY NONAGON INFINITY NONAGON INFINITY NONAGON INFINITY NONAGON INFINITY NONAGON INFINITY NONAGON INFINITY NONAGON INFINITY ps. it is my favourite song from the album
Fun, though not really accurate. Even if that fig was naturally pollinated, the wasps are essentially digested by the fig. Share the science *after* the shock. :P
Always great content. Specialized insect-plant relationships are fascinating but not at all what I would expect from this channel over the more usual physics. Awesome and educational none the less. 😁
Wow. My mom & I loved figs - when I was little we had a fig tree and I remember my mom opening a fig in the kitchen…there was a wasp in it🤔She just though it was a fluke. Didn’t know anything about fig wasps.
Large wasps frequently feed on fig fig, fig tree fruit. The type of wasps that pollinate, wild fig trees are so tiny that you would probably not notice them. They’re much smaller than a mosquito. Most commercial and garden variety, fig trees are cuttings of rare individuals that don’t need pollination.
Here's a funny nature story: There is a parasite called Cymothoa exigua, that eat's off a fish's tongue. After the tongue has fallen off/eaten up, the parasite turns into a new functional tongue for the fish.
Just like these, there's a lot lot other parasites that live off of humans. aren't we glad that we live in a society where we can be mostly parasite free. Except of course for other people.
The relation is probably closer to half siblings if its the same as bees. The queen is fertilized by many different males and lays eggs that have genetically different fathers. This is most likely the case as the wasps need to have some sort of method to prevent genetic diseases.
Reding _Climbing Mount Improbable_ made me look at figs in a completely new way. There are specific species of wasp that exist in a mutualist relationship with specific species of fig. If one goes extinct, so does the other.
My favorite factoid similar to this is the Alcon blue butterfly larvae that are carried by ants into the ants’ nests and are fed and raised along with the ants’ larvae brood. They even feed the butterfly larvae more than their own ant larvae. They treat them like royalty. The mechanisms of how this all happens is fascinating too.
Why do the ants do this? What do they get out of this relationship? Reminds me of a certain spider that has like a pet frog it gets a certain type of frog and has the frog live in it's burrow or den with the spiders eggs and the frog eats any bugs that would eat the frogs eggs and in turn the spider protects the frog from animals that would normally eat it
@@kevinpope5934"Caterpillars of the alcon blue butterfly have developed an outer coat that tricks ants into believing the young are its own, duping the ants into carrying the larvae back to their colonies to care for."
This is similar to either a butterfly or moth where the caterpillar makes a sound like the distress sound of the queen. The ants bring it inside mistaking it for a queen ant, then it goes around with free access and eats the ant brood.
That's awesome, dude. I wondered how that worked . Fresh figs are one of my favorite fruits . My grandmother had a huge Fig tree in her yard, in southeast Texas . In the summertime, I'd go out to the tree and pick fresh figs and eat them . It was like eating candy. Such a sweet chewy fruit . Also , I fondly recall the tradition when the pecans would fall from her huge old pecan trees and we'd harvest them for pecan pie for Thanksgiving. She taught me how to identify the " good " Pecans. Shelling them and selecting only the very best for the pies and eating the rest. Memories like that of my grandmother and family gatherings are the memories I cherish the most. It's nice when a video or something triggers the recollection of fond memories of times gone by .
@@tjhayes1310 that's interesting ! The olfactory system is complex . Sometimes I think of something and I can smell it, sometimes even taste it. Now that you mentioned it, I have seen things or heard a song that brings memories to my mind .
This is some crazy symbiotic relationship. Neither species would survive without the other and they must have co-evolved to the point we're you could practically consider them one species the same way as we say our digestive bacteria is part of ourselves
@@TheRealMonnie just because you can't comprehend or don't yet understand how evolution works doesn't mean this symbiotic relationship isn't derived from evolution
I love how there are at least two organisms that required this very specific evolutionary path. Also how there is very little reason why a longer life or more intelligence/consciousness would be benefitial for the fig wasp, meaning unless there is a major change in the environment, it will probably never develop in that regard. And yet its so highly specific and perfect for its evolutionary niche. God, evolution is beautiful
Very profound insight. It highlights a fundamental point about the nature of life; that is, it's merely a self-perpetuating chemical reaction. Everything else, all the complexities such as consciousness and intelligence are nothing but byproducts of the resilience of that self-perpetuating chemical process.
@@ash_11117 English speakers use the word god as an exclamation, no matter their beliefs or lack thereof as in my case. But just because you decided to be a prick today: Charles Darwin was an Agnostic Theist. Johann Gregor Mendel was a catholic priest. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck was a Deist who viewed God as the “sublime author of nature”.
Where does the genetic diversity of the wasps come from? This explanation makes it sound as if there is only 1 lineage as the female wasps leave their hatching fig already pregnant
might help if you mentioned the fact that by the time we eat figs all wasps have either vacated it or have been fully digested via enzymes and is equivalent to bugs dying on the ground where fruit trees grow, by that time it's nutrition, the circle of life did its job, now enjoy and be aware the crunch is just the seeds and fig texture, not remnant wasps.
Love how fig wasps literally don't have to exist if figs hair decided to pollenate like normal. So why did the world just decide "hm I think we're gonna do this this time."
Wasps are legitimately one of the most insanely cool (paraphyletic groups of) lifeforms on the planet, and they don't get anywhere near the credit they deserve. Fun wasp fact: male wasps are haploid so they only have half as many chromosomes as females.
This is debated but most vegans are fine with figs because almost all commercial figs are pollinated without the use of wasps. And even if they were, it's really no different than any other crop pollinated by (for example) bees, which also live and die during the plant's life cycle. It just seems more macabre for the fig wasps because their lives end inside the fig.
I wonder how the wasps FIGured out how to do this? Was it only a certain type of female wasp, with a certain type of FIGure that could enter? I wonder if the escaping nascent female wasps were STIGMAtized.. or maybe they just didn't give a fig? It's a shame that peaches don't reproduce like this, because if they _did_ one could refer to the wasp as a 'Figer of Peach'
