u/leifcollectsbugs

So this is what lacewing larvae look like at hatching!

Females lay eggs on top of thin, silken stalks. This unique structure suspends the eggs in the air. It protects them from crawling predators and hungry siblings.

Just before hatching, the eggs change color. They shift from a light green to a dark gray-white.

The larva uses a sharp head tool to cut the shell. It then emerges and climbs down the stalk.

Once on the plant, the larvae instantly look for food. They are highly aggressive hunters with large, sickle-shaped jaws.

These tiny predators devour aphids, mites, and thrips immediately. They inject venom to paralyze prey and suck out their fluids.

Now isn't that something?!

The Megarhyssa macrurus, commonly known as the long-tailed giant ichneumon wasp, is a harmless parasitic insect native to North America. Despite its intimidating, prehistoric appearance, this striking insect lacks a functional venomous stinger and poses no threat to humans or pets. Its most defining characteristic is its immense size, with a brightly patterned yellow and reddish-brown body that can grow up to two inches long.

The wasp is famous for the female's extraordinarily long, thread-like tail, which is actually a specialized egg-laying organ called an ovipositor. This structure can extend over three inches in length, more than doubling the insect's total size. While it looks like three separate stingers, it consists of one central egg-laying tube encased by two flexible protective sheaths that peel away during use. Males are notably smaller than females and completely lack this tail appendage.

This specialized anatomy is critical to the wasp's predatory lifecycle, which targets the larvae of the pigeon horntail wasp buried deep inside wood. The female crawls along dead or dying hardwood trees, using her antennae to feel for the subtle vibrations of a horntail grub tunneling inside. Once she pinpoints a target, she uses her zinc-hardened ovipositor to drill several inches directly through the solid timber, paralyzing the host grub and depositing a single egg next to it.

Once the egg hatches, the newborn Megarhyssa larva slowly consumes the horntail host alive before pupating inside the tree and emerging as an adult the following summer. This intricate process makes them highly beneficial to forest ecosystems, acting as a natural population control for wood-boring pests. Because they only target insects residing within dead or decaying wood, they cause zero damage to healthy, living trees.

Wasps are crucial for ecosystems by controlling pest insect populations (caterpillars, aphids), acting as pollinators for many plants (especially figs), serving as food for other animals (birds, spiders), aiding decomposition by carrying dead insects, aerating soil through nesting, spreading beneficial microbes, and even holding economic value in agriculture and medicine, making them vital for environmental balance, not just nuisances.

10 ways wasps help the environment:

1. Natural Pest Control: They hunt and feed on crop-damaging pests like aphids, caterpillars, and flies, keeping their numbers down.

2. Pollination: As they seek nectar, they transfer pollen, assisting in plant reproduction, especially for figs and orchids.

3. Food Source: Wasps and their larvae provide essential protein for birds, spiders, reptiles, and other predators, supporting higher food webs.

4. Decomposition: They scavenge dead insects and organic matter, helping to recycle nutrients back into the soil.

5. Soil Aeration: Digging nesting burrows helps mix and aerate soil, improving drainage and root growth.

6. Microbe Dispersal: Moving between flowers and decaying matter helps spread beneficial microbes, promoting plant health.

7. Promote Biodiversity: With thousands of species filling various ecological roles, wasps contribute to overall ecosystem richness.

8. Support Agriculture: Their pest control services reduce the need for chemical pesticides, saving farmers billions and protecting crops.

9. Biological Control Agents: Parasitic wasps lay eggs inside other insects, controlling pest populations naturally.

10. Nutritional Role (in some cultures): In some parts of the world, wasps (and their larvae) are a traditional food source for humans.

These are only a few reasons to love them. Get to know some of the families in the video and I bet I could make you a fan!

If you're like me, you'll get it. You know who you are! And if I don't know who you are, find me @leifcollectsbugs on all plats

Wasps are spectacular ecosystem engineers. There are over 100,000 described species. They act as nature's premier pest controllers, specialist pollinators, and medical pioneers.

A world without them would lack vital food crops and collapse under unchecked insect populations!

-Cull crop-damaging pests

-They consume aphids, caterpillars, and leaf beetles

-Their massive appetites save farmers billions in chemical pesticides

-Single nests clear out tremendous numbers of spiders

-Solitary wasps target specific pests like crickets or roaches

-They naturally control fall armyworms on maize crops.

-Wasps help regulate invertebrate populations at the top of the food chain

-Short lives and fast reproduction let them match prey fluctuations

-They stop invasive insects from taking over local gardens

-Predatory wasps provide natural pest control for residential landscapes

-They reduce the need for harsh agricultural chemicals

-Wasp predation keeps garden ecosystems perfectly balanced

-They scavenge dead insects, acting as nature's cleaning service

-Wasps visit hundreds of plant species to feed on nectar

-They are the sole pollinators for certain orchids and figs

-Fig wasps are completely responsible for the existence of figs

-They boast strong memories, flying precisely to the same flowers

-Their aeronautical skills help plants reproduce

-Wasp pollination contributes heavily to overall plant diversity

-They are vital backup pollinators when bee populations decline

-Parasitoid wasps naturally control agricultural pest populations

-Wasp venom contains powerful antibiotics that keep prey fresh

-Larval secretions are rich in antimicrobials and beneficial bacteria

-These antimicrobials fight multi-drug-resistant bacteria in humans

-Wasp toxins show great promise in killing cancer cells

-Peptides in their venom specifically destroy cancer cell walls

-Research into their venom is helping to treat epilepsy

-Scientists study wasp neurotoxins to understand and treat pain

-Wasp nests have properties that prevent dental decay.

-Mud-dauber nests provide essential minerals like calcium and iron

-Their venom is even being explored to help treat Alzheimer's diseas.

So this is what lacewing larvae look like at hatching!

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Females lay eggs on top of thin, silken stalks. This unique structure suspends the eggs in the air. It protects them from crawling predators and hungry siblings.

​

Just before hatching, the eggs change color. They shift from a light green to a dark gray-white.

​

The larva uses a sharp head tool to cut the shell. It then emerges and climbs down the stalk.

​

Once on the plant, the larvae instantly look for food. They are highly aggressive hunters with large, sickle-shaped jaws.

​

These tiny predators devour aphids, mites, and thrips immediately. They inject venom to paralyze prey and suck out their fluids.

​

Now isn't that something?!

People like to think of wasps as useless aggressive death machines, but in reality, most wasps are super chill, solitary species who want nothing to do with people and rarely interact with people.

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Wasps are highly important pollinators. While they often take a back seat to bees in public awareness, wasps visit at least 960 plant species, with roughly 164 species completely relying on them for survival.

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Beyond moving pollen, adult wasps are crucial to the global economy because they function as nature's pest controllers, eating massive quantities of crop-destroying insects.

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Their services are overlooked all because paper wasps and yellowjackets and occasionally hornets tend to instill terror among our global human audience.

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If you can see past those groups that cause you fear, wasps on large, (99 percent of the other 100,000 species), are super interesting, and very beneficial insects!

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Erpobdella is a genus of ribbon-like, non-blood-sucking freshwater leeches measuring 20 to 50 millimeters long. Lacking jaws and a piercing proboscis, they cannot bite humans or animals. Instead, they use a large, toothless pharynx to swallow prey whole and navigate using multiple pairs of eyes.

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These nocturnal predators hunt along water beds using chemical signals to track down food. They consume small aquatic invertebrates like midge larvae and worms by securing them with an oral sucker. They also act as scavengers by feeding on dead or injured organisms

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Widespread across North America, Europe, and Asia, these leeches hide under rocks and logs in streams and ponds. They tolerate severe organic pollution and low oxygen levels exceptionally well. Because they bioaccumulate toxins, scientists frequently use them as bioindicators to evaluate water quality.

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As hermaphrodites, they reproduce by exchanging sperm packets and secreting protective, amber-colored egg cocoons. They cement these cocoons to underwater surfaces and abandon them to hatch independently. Their lifespan lasts 12 to 24 months, depending entirely on food availability and water temperature.

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Follow my page on insta @leifcollectsbugs

Let's just cut to the chase.

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I've now talked to HUNDREDS OF WASP HATERS.

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The consensus is this.

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Most do not know how many wasp species there really are.

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Most do not know only females can sting.

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Most do not know 3 percent of all wasp species can actually sting.

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Most have not even actually encountered wasps besides yellowjackets and paper wasps.

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What does this all mean? It means they have no grounds, no qualifications for hating wasps. If anyone tells you wasps are the devil, take it with the same energy as those who tell you television in the devil, or your phone is the devil. They're obsessed, but lack the discipline to prove to themselves that it's wasps they really hate, and not just a couple easy to name, widespread species of social wasps in Genus Polistes, and genus Vespula.

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That is all. Good day, bug lovers! If educated we stand, hopeless, they fall.

Meeting my largest ichneumon wasp to date! And I aspire to find larger!

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This fella is definitely subfamily Rhyssinae, which groups large ichneumons with typically also large ovipositors, comically large. So large, that the ovipositor goes up and around then into the surface it's laying eggs.

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Absolutely gorgeous animal, and I'm so excited to have come across it, and actually caught it! Many of my best observations get away before a chance to closely interact with.

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Harmless, these animals. I always get negative push back when I say they're parasitic, because people immediately assume I mean parasitic to humans. Of course, that's not the case.

Phrynosoma hernandesi, (Girard in 1858), is more commonly known as the greater short-horned lizard.

You might also hear it called the mountain short-horned lizard or Hernández's short-horned lizard. This particular lizard species belongs to the *Phrynosomatidae* family.

You can find this species exclusively in western North America. Even though many people call it a "horned toad" or "horny toad," it's important to remember that it's actually a reptile, not an amphibian like a toad. It's one of seven lizard species native to Canada.

This lizard holds the record for the most widespread horned lizard across North America, living in a huge variety of environments.

Its territory stretches from central Nevada in the west to North and South Dakota in the east, and from southern Saskatchewan and Alberta up north, all the way down to eastern New Mexico and central Mexico.

There are even some smaller populations scattered in Trans-Pecos Texas.

When it comes to hunting, the greater short-horned lizard is a "sit-and-wait" kind of predator. Its main diet consists of ants, but it won't pass up a grasshopper or beetle if one comes by.

You can often find it patiently waiting near ant nests or trails. It's active during the day and typically burrows underground for the night.

To stay safe from predators, it relies heavily on its camouflage. These horned lizards are known to change the color of their skin, making it darker when they feel threatened or when they need to adjust their body temperature.