I saw the strangest thing ever!

[matthew2riches]

I was stretching some wire onto wooden posts to support the scaffold netting for my brassica cage today and I saw something weird.......

My eye caught a wasp sat on a sprout plant (I hate wasps) so I stopped what I was doing to be cautious. The wasp was eating a caterpiller!!!

Munching away at it and all green sludge comeing out of the half-a-caterpiller.

[Jeanied]

Interesting observation - I noticed something similar. I have been doing a 'squishing' campaign on the caterpillars on my brassicas for the last few days - and the first to show up are the wasps! I had to put the squished ones into a container a few yards away to try and avoid them -they must be smelling some sweet caterpillar juice because they are there in minutes!

[lizzylemon]

It's very cool isn't it?

Caterpillars are a fav food for wasps - they suck the juice and then regurgitate it back at the nest to share with the hive (very basic description). They eat by putting it in the mouth of another wasp or larval, who then spits (I think) it back and it's changed into a different substance thats much more potent than before and eat the new substance - they do it with nector too! It's something to do with their very thin waste, it means they can't eat solids and can only take this super fluid which started off as nector or caterpillar juice (their version of blood - hemolymph)

It's a common myth that wasps eat wood, they chew it up to make pulp which they carry back to make the paper for the nest, but thats all.

Very specialised things our wasps - just a shame they get so aggressive and sting.

[Jeanied]

Wow Lizzy - does this mean we can rehabilitate wasps from foes to friends? Do they go for un-squished caterpillars and kill them?

[lizzylemon]

Wow Lizzy - does this mean we can rehabilitate wasps from foes to friends? Do they go for un-squished caterpillars and kill them?

Well wouldn't go so far as friend (they're too unpredictable for my liking) but yep, they go for non-squished caterpillars. Sometimes if you're really lucky, you might even see a wasp trying to fly with a caterpillar back to the nest if it's very close by.

There's paracytical wasps as well: they're much smaller than the paper wasp and normally you don't notice it going on as the female swoops down, appears to sting the caterpillar and then goes, but she's acutally inserted an egg which will live inside the caterpillar, with caterpillar living happily until the wasp is ready to hatch.

Sci-fi films nick all their plots from Mother nature - LOL.

[Flummery]

Wasps are carnivorous. They eat pests. I'm all for them. 3 cheers for wasps.

[Herbie]

If they eat caterpillars send them to my lottie My fifteen year old daughter was stung by a wasp on Saturday and she said they hurt!

After she did a little dance around the kitchen - "MUM"!!!! Nice to feel wanted by a teenager!

[lizzylemon]

My fifteen year old daughter was stung by a wasp on Saturday and she said they hurt!

Shes not wrong - I have been stung 4 times in my life and I have a scar from each sting. Ever-so-slightly react to the stings. Leg blew up like a balloon last year. so I send all mine your way - I prefer caterpillars, they turn into pretty butterflies (or moths)