• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Does Eating A Fig Always Involve Eating Dead Wasps? Yes And No

March 24, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

If you like figs then it could be argued that you have a taste for wasps. The relationship between figs and fig wasps is arguably the most interdependent pollination symbiosis known to science, and it ends with a lot of dead wasps going missing inside figs.

By the time you come to eat the fig there probably won’t be any sign of them, so where do the wasps go? Well, the fruit sort of eats them.

Advertisement

The fig wasp life cycle

Fig wasps have a fascinating life cycle that involves invasions, incest, and insectivorous plants. It’s an example of obligate mutualism, as neither figs nor their namesake wasps can complete their life cycle without the other. However, as is often the way in group projects, it works out better for some than others.

The love affair between figs and wasps is thought to have been going for 60 million years, and it all begins with a female wasp getting covered in pollen. She then crawls inside an immature fruit through a hole called an ostiole that you can see at the bottom of a fig.

fig wasp life cycle

The floral butt through which a female fig wasp climbs. Image credit: Somboon Kamtaeja / Shutterstock.com

She lays her eggs inside some of the flowers tucked within, simultaneously pollinating the fig. The flowers stuffed with eggs form gall-like ovaries in which the wasp larvae develop while the wasp-free flowers go on to become seeds inside the mature fruit.

Wingless male fig wasps are the first to crawl out into the fig’s interior and they’ll battle with each other between fertilizing their sisters(!) who are still trapped in their galls. Battles can be ruthless with some wasps getting beheaded by the mandibles of other males.

Advertisement

Females then emerge from their galls already mated, but they’re able to leave the fig thanks to escape tunnels dug by the wingless male wasps. They pick up a coating of male fig pollen on their way out, and the life cycle begins again.

Where do the dead wasps in figs go?

Trapped inside the fig without a wing or a prayer, the males die and never leave the fruit in which they hatched. But they won’t turn up inside your fancy fig starter (provided it’s ripe) as the fig releases an enzyme known as ficin that breaks down their corpses so they can be absorbed into the fruit. 

There are also some fig varieties that don’t need wasp-facilitated fertilization, so in answer to the question…

Are you eating wasps when you eat figs?

In the case of fig wasps: yes at a push, but mostly no. Some people like to say that the crunchy bits in a fig are the tiny fig wasps, but this isn’t true. Those are the fig seeds (remember those wasp-larvae-free flowers?) and they’re perfectly fine to eat along with the delicious fleshy fruit.

Advertisement

Other wasp species might feast on a fig that’s ruptured, and could possibly then die mid-meal. You’ll just have to use your eyes for that one.

While it’s fun to tease your biggest-fig-fan friends that they’re unknowingly eating wasps, the fact is there’s nothing left resembling a wasp by the time you’re eating it. And anyway, what’s so bad about entomophagy anyway?

All “explainer” articles are confirmed by fact checkers to be correct at time of publishing. Text, images, and links may be edited, removed, or added to at a later date to keep information current.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Twitter re-opens its account verification process after another pause
  2. ‘Crazy’: Britain puts army on standby as panic buying leaves petrol pumps dry
  3. Soccer-Dramatic late winner keep alive Scotland’s World Cup dreams
  4. Foot Inside Ribcage Marks Earliest Evidence Of A Dinosaur Eating A Mammal

Source Link: Does Eating A Fig Always Involve Eating Dead Wasps? Yes And No

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • A Spinning Island Lake In Argentina Looms Out Of The Swamps Like An Eyeball
  • Mammals Have Evolved Into Ant Eaters 12 Times Since The Dinosaurs Went Extinct
  • Thieving Pulsar Spinning 592 Times A Second Reveals New Understanding Of Where Its X-Rays Come From
  • The Rise And Fall (And Lamentable Rise) Of The “Alpha Male” Myth
  • IFLScience The Big Questions: How Do Black Holes Shape The Universe?
  • North America’s Smallest Turtle Is The Cutest Thing You’ll Find In A Bog
  • “Unambiguous Signal” To Curb Emissions Now: Long-Lost Aerial Photos Reveal Evolution Of Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapse
  • 8 Children Have Been Born With 3 Biological Parents Each After Mitochondrial Transfer
  • First Known Observations Of Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry In Special Particle Decay
  • In 1973, NASA Sent Two Spiders Into Space To See If They Can Spin Webs – And They Learnt A Lot
  • Meet The Many Species Of Freaky Looking “Assassin Spiders” That Only Eat Other Spiders
  • Your Dog’s TV Preferences Might Reveal Their Personality
  • Some Human Gut Bacteria Can Absorb Harmful Toxic “Forever Chemicals” So They Can Be Pooped Out
  • You Could Float Through 10 Countries Before The World’s Most International River Spat You Out
  • Enormous Coronal Hole And Beast-Like Crawling Prominences Dazzle On The Active Sun
  • Dramatic Drone Footage Of Iceland’s Latest Volcanic Eruption Shows An Epic Scene From Hell
  • A Shrimp That Lives In A Tree? Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains Are Home To Some Seriously Strange Wildlife
  • Is NASA’s Claim That Saturn Could Float On Water Really True?
  • Pangea Proxima: This Is What Planet Earth May Look Like 250 Million Years In The Future
  • The Story Of Dogxim, The Fox-Dog Hybrid That Shouldn’t Have Existed
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version