Something nasty in the process of change
69Insects and parasites
Insect Parasites
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Parasitic flies
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![A multi-step bioassay to assess the effect of the deltamethrin on the parasitic wasp Aphidius ervi [An article from: Chemosphere]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51M6G4MFGFL._SL75_.jpg) | Amazon Price: $10.95 |
Nature can bring strange surprises
Metamorphosis is the title of a story by Franz Kafka about a man who wakes up to find he has turned into a cockroach, and the word means some sort of transformation. Insects all go through different stages before they become the adult form and everyone is familiar with how the caterpillar becomes a chrysalis and then emerge as a butterfly or moth.
I recently reported about some Vine Hawk moth caterpillars I had rescued from a garden and was looking forward to seeing the adult moth. Sometimes, however, when rearing insects you end up with something very different to what you expected.
There are countless forms of parasitic flies and wasps that lay their eggs on or in caterpillars but the host larval insect looks as if it is healthy until it reaches the later stage in its metamorphosis. Some parasitic species emerge as grubs when the caterpillar is about to change into a chrysalis and others take the situation one step further and are still inside the body of their insect host in the pupa.
So what you finally end up with is not a pretty butterfly or moth but an ugly parasitic fly or wasp. It always reminds me of the scene in the Sci-fi movie Alien where the extraterrestrial creature breaks out of the body of the astronaut it has invaded.
Fortunately, for me I got used to seeing such parasites emerge from caterpillars I had kept as a small boy but I am sure for many people it must be a real nightmare to see this sort of thing happen. Unfortunately this was to be the fate of all the Vine Hawk larvae and it also happened to some Monarch butterfly caterpillars I found.
So I still haven't seen an adult Vine Hawk but I have seen a fly that is a parasite of this species. It was really disappointing but I released the adult parasites, which in their own way have just as much right to life and have an incredible life cycle even if to our eyes it seems gruesome.
The parasite flies go through all the same stages as a butterfly going from egg to grub to pupa to adult. The difference is that unlike a caterpillar they don't eat leaves but must feed on the living flesh of caterpillars they live inside.
The type that killed the caterpillars of the Vine Hawk and the Monarch butterfly was some species of tachinid fly. These parasitic insects look very much like large hairy houseflies.
There are also what are known as ichneumon flies and wasps. The ichneumons tend to be long spindly winged creatures and the females have ovipositor egg-laying tubes, which they use to inject their eggs into caterpillars, and grubs their larvae feed on.
There are countless types of parasites like this and many are used as biological controls of pests that destroy our crops. Many parasites have their own parasites that prey on them and although to our minds it may seem sinister, in reality these insects show how incredible nature is in all its diversity.
But let me tell you more about the Monarch Butterfly caterpillars, which I rescued from a very small Milkweed plant with not enough leaves to feed the three half-grown caterpillars on it and no more plants nearby. The caterpillars would have surely starved if it were not for my good deed.
The mother butterfly had found the right plant to lay her eggs on but didn't realise there wasn't enough of it to feed her babies. A mother tachinid fly had also found the Milkweed and the caterpillars on it but I didn't realise this until much later on.
From the three caterpillars that I took home and fed daily with Milkweed one adult butterfly and two tachinid flies were produced. It was a case of third time lucky for the Monarch I thought.
I was thrilled to see the stages of this beautiful insect's life cycle and to get photos of caterpillar, chrysalis and adult. The chrysalis is a real work of Mother Nature's art being an exquisite shade of green with a row of metallic golden spots near the head.
Inside a miraculous transformation is taking place as the body of the caterpillar that was is completely rebuilt into that of the glorious butterfly it will be. And what a beauty the Monarch is with its reddish wings veined with black.
Incidentally, the colours are warning colours that tell would be predators that it is poisonous. The toxins the adult contains were absorbed from the Milkweed the caterpillar ate and this is another form of transformation with the poisons from a food plant being converted into an insect's defence system.
As I watched the butterfly glide away over my house I was thinking about the ugly duckling story, in which the shabby little bird transforms into the magnificent swan. With the tachinid flies it is almost a reversal of this with a made-to-be-beautiful butterfly changed into an unattractive fly, but remember beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and Mother Nature sees very differently to us.
Footnote: First published in the Western Sun, 2006
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Yes, it's very sad what has been happening and I have read a lot on the subject. It's the same in the UK although where I live in Tenerife the bees are OK still.
First off, thanks for catching my attention with this title because it worked! Very informative hub, great pictures, and overall great job.
Thank you, SweetiePie!
I really loved this hub and the pictures you put with it! I think this kind of stuff is facinating, so I am glad you not only took the time to record the process, but also to share it. I usually don't make the following kind of comment on hubpages, but I really am moved to here......How can anyone see this amazing, intelligent design in nature and NOT believe in a designer? Your fan, Rhym
Thank you again, Rhym!
Yes, indeed, that is how I see it too! As William Blake said "For everything that loves is holy."
I have often thought about how crazy it is that humans select one flower or animal as better than another because they are prettier or cuter when the most insignificant (to us) weed and the tiniest bug is a divine work of creation that can far outdo anything people can make in its complexity, and not only that but it is alive!
As Dylan sang: "I can see the Master's hand in every sparrow falling and every grain of sand."
Bard of Ely, thoughtful hub, and beautiful photos.
However, it's not so crazy for people to value one species over another. It's not very different from valuing one person over another. Value judgments depend on point of view. There can be no absolute value. Value presumes the question: value to whom for what purpose? That's also why there's no such thing as universal love. Love is preference. To love everyone is to love no one. To say that everyone is beautiful is like saying that no one is.
Problem is Aya, that this causes specieism and racism, and favouritism! In human terms this causes unhappiness, conflict and war! In terms of nature it causes some plants and animals to have a better chance at survival just because of human judgements over what is best. It gives humans the abilitity to decide which humans, plants and animals are going to have a better chance at living than others.
Yes, of course you are bound to make judgements but it is obvious that for example every person who cares about dogs and cats cannot see to the welfare of all the billions of these animals in the world, just as a person who is motivated to help other people can only do so with those within his or her sphere of influence.
It seems obvious to me that God or Mother Nature or however you wish to view the creator of the natural world creates in an infinite abundance of forms and designs and takes it to incredible lengths. In other words life is about diversity but human thought patterns in seeking to create favourites, preferred species etc is in opposition to this. Example: a lawn untended by humans will quickly fill up up with many species of grass and also with wild flowers. The more of these species of plants the more insects will live there and the more birds and other creatures will use the lawn as a place to find food. Humans, however, want a one species of grass only lawn mown very short, not allowed to flower and for no other species like daisies or dandelions to grow in it. It is unnatural surely to insist on a lack of species within a given environment because of the extreme favouritism given to one?
Further if you go to any habitat on the planet where there are few people or none you will find an incredible amount of plants and animals but go to a populated area and the number of animals and plants gets less and less. So my argument is that humans are working against the multiplicity of life forms on Earth using a belief system that they are for some reason better!
Bard of Ely, Agreed: diversity in nature is a good thing and man's efforts to destroy species that are less favored will ultimately backfire.
Just don't be so sure other animals don't have similar preferences. The difference between us and them is that we have somehow gotten more power. Our belief system isn't unusual or difficult to explain. It's the power that we wield to multiply ourselves and fill the earth that's the real problem.
Well, I am well aware that animals have preferences. I was just thinking today that whilst cockroaches can eat an incredible amount of foods and many things that would be considered inedible to other animals they prefer a nice piece of fruit. I had left apricots on a shelf and a cockroach had eaten into one of them. My cat Tiggy can be very fussy and will ignore some perfectly edible foods she doesn't like! So, yes, I hear what you are saying but I don't know of any other lifeform that takes large steps to eradicate other species or to control their numbers based on its perceived ideas about them. People do do this - they talk about eradicating species they do not like. They may even pass laws about this eg in the UK the Ragwort is deemed an invasive weed that landowners are to get rid of completely ignoring the fact that it supports 32 other species of life.There is a bill passed about this and a propaganda machine to say it is a danger to horses so kill it!
I see this as humans setting themselves up as gods and believing they have the right to destroy what God made. The example above being a good one - why did God/Mother Nature/Great Spirit make Ragwort and cause 32 different lifeforms to depend on it if it wasn't meant to be and why are humans intent on destroying it?
If humans destroy all the Ragwort then those other dependent species die too. Humans are the species causing mass extinctions!
Bard of Ely, other species don't cause mass exterminations, not because they don't want to, but because of two other reasons:
1) They don't know how to do it.
2) They are more aware what happens to other animals, because their senses are sharper.
My chimpanzee Bow complained about mice last fall. They had taken shelter in our house during the cold weather. He could hear them. I couldn't. He alerted me to their presence and asked that they leave. I called an exterminator who left poison packets. When the mice started dying, Bow could hear them scream. He couldn't stand it. He said it was horrible. New mice were coming in and eating the poison each day, then screaming in agony. I couldn't hear any of it. Bow begged me to make it stop. Finally, I had to call in the exterminator to take back the poison packets that were left.
Here's the point: Bow wanted the mice gone, but he didn't want them killed like this, because he heard their death cries. This is not kindness to mice. It's just self-interest.
A couple of points there:
Firstly, we don't see much evidence of them making any effort to and in fact many species eat as much as they need and then leave the rest. Granted there are mammals that kill for fun even if animal rights people claim otherwise but the point is it is only on a very very small scale!
How can you be certain Bow didn't feel sorrow for the mice?
And even if this wasn't the case we can and surely should? Yes, I have killed mice and other pests but have hated doing it and have felt guilty. It has been a last resort when other methods fail. I know many people feel likewise and thus there are mouse traps that catch them rather than killing them etc
That our senses in general are not as finely tuned I would accept as being a massive part of what is wrong with the world. If people could hear, see, smell and feel what is going on they would probably be so horrified they would do something about changing it and I would suggest that that is precisely why populations are dumbed down, manipulated and suppressed - sensitive people usually fail to agree with the system they are in!
Yes, people often do this even with senses working fine - they choose not to look at the reality there, anything but look at the truth!
And tribal people who do know how to kill other species and contribute towards their extinction do not do this - it is 'civilised' and 'educated' people who are the main threat to large numbers of other species!
Bard of Ely, all very true. In general, it is easier to condone wholesale slaughter when you don't have to witness it -- or do the killing yourself.
Yes, this is why animal slaughter is done out of the way in slaughterhouses and why animal products when they go on sale do not show the consumer anything about what the animal that contributed its life to the product was subjected to!
I have an anecdote that reveals a lot: many years back I was with some friends in a restaurant and was about to eat a trout that was served whole and had the head left on it and my friend Mike said, "I don't know how you can eat that!"
"Why?" I responded, "What's the problem?"
"Well, it's almost as if it's looking at you," my friend replied. He was about to tuck into a steak though and had no problem there because of course it didn't look anything like a cow!
I also have a very dedicated vegan and animal rights friend called Vicki who runs a stall in the city centre on weekends and she once told me that a lot of people won't look at the evidence on her pamphlets but deliberately walk away so as not to have to look at what she has on the table and she can see them doing this!
Bard of Ely,
I am not a vegetarian, but I like my fish served with the head still on, because that way I can be sure it's a real fish -- and hence actual food -- rather than some simulated substance made to resemble fish.
That said, I never pretend that I think fish have no feelings.
I eat fish but not meat because I can kill fish and have done so. I couldn't kill a mammal apart from the mice as I said earlier and I hated doing that. I used to hate watching my grandad drowning rats as a child.
I often think about cat and dog food that is the end product of suffering for the animals that have gone into it. Strangely although animal rights activists protest about farming for the meat industry they are usually content with feeding their cats and dogs with meat and at the same time being vegetarians or vegans. There is no simple answer to this because cats and dogs are carnivores so need meat as a food and if they cannot hunt their prey because of how we keep them then we must provide for them but it is far from ideal! If vegetarians and vegans ever succeeded in the highly unlikely objective of getting everyone else to stop eating meat what would happen about cats and dogs? Animal farming and slaughter would still have to go on to feed them.
Great hub Bard on a fascinating a beautiful subject!
I am always fascinated by creatures especially insects and Nature can produce the most beautiful and unfortunately, most dangerous things in the world!
Yes, it produced humans - without going into a debate about demons, reptilians etc, what other known form of life is there as dangerous as us?
Nice hub! I have been learning more and more about parasites lately.
Oh, about the bees over here, my theory is all the boric acid in jet fuel.
Thanks for posting, MD! Not heard that theory before but I know boric acid kills ants - only trouble is the ants seem to be doing fine! I used to think it was chemtrails but now I no longer believe that so I really don't know what it is!
Chef Jeff 3 years ago
In the U.S. we have been losing honey bees, and so far I have not seen any official reason as to why. This year we planted flowers to attract bees and have seen only a few dozen. I hope this is not some viral epidemic or anything that might destroy the bees!