What wasp lays its eggs inside a cockroach, and what is the ghastly ritual that the wasp goes through once it has found a cockroach victim?

serpa

The emerald cockroach wasp or jewel wasp (Ampulex compressa) is a solitary wasp of the family Ampulicidae. It is known for its unusual reproductive behavior, which involves stinging a cockroach and using it as a host for its larvae. It delivers an initial sting to a thoracic ganglion and injects venom to mildly and reversibly paralyze the front legs of its victim. This facilitates the second venomous sting at a carefully chosen spot in the roach's head ganglia (brain), in the section that controls the escape reflex. The wasp proceeds to chew off half of each of the roach's antennae. The wasp, which is too small to carry the roach, then leads the victim to the wasp's burrow, by pulling one of the roach's antennae in a manner similar to a leash. Once they reach the burrow, the wasp lays a white egg, about 2 mm long, on the roach's abdomen.... With its escape reflex disabled, the stung roach will simply rest in the burrow as the wasp's egg hatches after about three days. The hatched larva lives and feeds for 4–5 days on the roach, then chews its way into its abdomen and proceeds to live as an endoparasitoid. Over a period of eight days, the wasp larva consumes the roach's internal organs in an order which guarantees that the roach will stay alive, at least until the larva enters the pupal stage and forms a cocoon inside the roach's body. Eventually the fully grown wasp emerges from the roach's body to begin its adult life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_cockroach_wasp Jun 26 10, 12:51 AM

star_gazer

Imagine some huge thing doing that to humans. That would make for a good science fiction/horror movie. Jun 26 10, 1:47 AM