Imagine your killer ‘punches it’s way through your chest it makes you tuck it in and cook it dinner’, this is the reality of these parastic wasps that trick catipillars into a false life.
These horrific wasps behave like something out of the plot of sci-fi horror film Alien right in our own back gardens. The wasps use unsuspecting prey to farm their young. Their pulsating bodies push out of their host’s torso, before the brainwashed caterpillars perform an even more disturbing act.
When looking for somewhere to lay their eggs, they will flock towards the smell of the Cabbage white butterfly’s caterpillars’ saliva mixed with cabbage or radishes as they tear their way through the plants we love to grow in allotments across the country.
These caterpillars are bigger, stronger, and more aggressive than the wasps, however, the flying insects manage to get the species in a headlock of sorts. With a few uninterrupted seconds to lay her eggs, the female wasp will plant them the caterpillar, almost killing her, according to Team Candiru.
The caterpillar will appear normal, but the eggs will be feeding on the beasts’ non-essential tissue, biding their time. The larva then releases a chemical that paralyses the caterpillar, despite its tough skin the wasps have developed sharp teeth that can cut themselves out from the belly of the insect.
Once they breach the surface of its skin they contract their bodies from front to back, pushing themselves out. There can be up to 50 eggs in one caterpillar.
The plethora of larvae then begin to spin a golden silk which they use to cocoon themselves. The grubs do not spill any blood as they move out of the caterpillar – and miraculously, its host remains alive.
However, it is now chained to the larvae’s cocoons, and now in an act of confusion the caterpillar begins to help the young spin their homes with its own silk. Team Candiru said: “Under normal circumstances this instinct would not exhibit any maternal instincts whatsoever.”
When the caterpillar is finished spinning the nest it begins watching over the young like a mother would. Team Candiru said “it will stand sentry over the wasps day and night, fiercely defending them against any intruders.”
It will continue to guard them until it starves itself. After a few days, the wasps will emerge from their eggs, with the males coming first, waiting for the females.
According to the channel these wasps are “so common” that 70 per cent of large white caterpillars will suffer this fate, so the cycle of these wasps’ lives may continue.
One horrified viewer said: “When I was about 13 years old, in my garden there were a lot of caterpillars and I was very excited to see how these insects became pupae and then butterflies, but I remember looking at a caterpillar and seeing that it behaved strangely, to which I kept observing when suddenly, those worms began to emerge!
“I was simply shocked because I didn’t understand what was happening, how it was possible that worms came out of a caterpillar, I was appalled, but then I did some research and found out what it was. A bit mirk.”
