Photo compliments of http:\/\/www.cals.ncsu.edu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nYesterday we learned that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover.\u00a0 Today we are going to learn that the insect world is filled with weird insects that have strange behaviours. One of the wierdest has to be the life history strategies of the twisted wing parasite.\u00a0 You know it is messed up when even biologists named them “twisted”.<\/p>\n
The twisted wing parasite actually has a complex life style. Only the males have wings, legs and are free living.\u00a0 The females never leave the host that they are living in (except in the Mengenillidae family). The females don’t have legs or wings.\u00a0 Let me back up a bit and tell you the interesting life cycle of the twisted wing parasites.\u00a0 It all starts with the little larvae (the immature stage of the insect).\u00a0 The larvae will climb onto some pretty flowers and wait for other insects to come and pollinate those flowers.\u00a0 When an insect like a bee lands on the flower the twisted wing larvae will jump aboard the insect and burrow into their body. At this point they will change into another stage of larvae and feed off the blood and organs of the poor unsuspecting host.\u00a0 At this point a male twisted wing parasite will emerge in order to find a mate.\u00a0 The male insect does not eat and only lives for about 5 hours.\u00a0 Their only goal is to find a female and mate. As mentioned, the female twisted wing parasite remains in their host so they will produce pheromones in order to attract their short lived mate.\u00a0 Only the head and thorax (body) of the female are sticking out of the host insect so once the male finds the female he will penetrate the area between the head and the thorax depositing his sperm directly into the abdominal cavity.\u00a0 The eggs will hatch and the larvae will move on looking for their very own host to take advantage of.\u00a0 At this point the whole cycle starts over again.\u00a0 Now if this does not weird you out then their is something wrong with you.\u00a0 I am just glad that the human life cycle is completely different then that of the twisted wing parasite.<\/p>\n
Twisted Wing Parasite Fast Fact:<\/strong> In some species the female is able to reproduce without actually mating with a male. Oh and one more thing! These insects don’t just live in some remote, tropical area.\u00a0 We have them in USA and Canada.<\/p>\nEnjoy the rest of your day!<\/p>\n
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Reference:<\/strong><\/p>\nTwisted-Wing Parasites: Strepsiptera – Behavior And Reproduction<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yesterday we learned that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover.\u00a0 Today we are going to learn that the insect world is filled with weird insects that have strange behaviours. One of the wierdest has to be the life history strategies of the twisted wing parasite.\u00a0 You know it is messed up when even biologists named them “twisted”. The twisted wing parasite actually has a complex life style. Only the males have wings, legs and are free living.\u00a0 The females never leave the host that they are living in (except in the Mengenillidae family). The females don’t have legs <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,4024],"tags":[348,4026,208,4113,4025,275,4121,277,274],"yoast_head":"\n
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