The emerald jewel wasp is a deadly and venomous insect, like all wasps are.
Their sting can be excruciatingly painful for humans.
But for cockroaches, this wasp is the stuff of nightmares.
The emerald jewel wasp is a parasitic wasp that enslaves cockroaches by injecting mind-controlling venom into their brains.
The young offspring then emerges out of the corpse like an alien bursting out of the victims abdomen.
An emerald jewel wasp and a cockroach battles for dominance.
She then stings ittwice.
The loss of mobility allows the wasp to deliver the second sting withremarkable accuracy.
At first it becomes sluggish as if drunk, and then it begins a curious grooming routine.
There is dopamine in the venom, a chemical that controls the brain’s reward and pleasure centers.
Some believe that grooming ensures a clean, microbe-free host for the vulnerable baby wasp.
It becomes unable to flee or do anything else for that matter.
So the venom doesn’t numb the animal’s sensesit alters how its brain responds to them.
The cockroach, now completely docile, allows itself to be led to the wasps nest.
About two days the egg hatches, and the larva grows latched onto the cockroach.
At first the larva chews on the cockroachs leg drinking the nutritious hemolymph that oozes out.
Later, it bores a hole into the cockroachs abdomen and climbs inside to feast on the internal organs.
A fully grown adult emerging out of the shell of a dead cockroach.
Other researchers hadnoted thesebehaviors anecdotally, but no one had made a detailed study of it until now.
Catania found that the karate kick is very effectiveit worked in 63 percent of adult cockroaches who tried.
