Posted on 03/27/2012 4:29:43 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Males of new species have long, sickle-shaped jaws
A new species of giant, venomous wasp has been found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi (map), scientists say.
The two-inch-long (five-centimeter-long) black insects are shrouded in mystery—all of the wasp specimens caught so far have been dead.
"I'm not certain any researcher has ever seen one alive, but they are very bizarre-looking," said study co-author Lynn Kimsey, an entomologist at the University of California, Davis, who co-discovered the insect.
"It's the extreme version of the [larrine wasp] subfamily they belong to."
Larrine wasps typically dig nests for their eggs and larvae in open, sandy areas. The adults grow no longer than an inch (2.5 centimeters)—making the newly discovered Megalara garuda the "king of wasps," according to the study authors.
Wasp Males' Spiky Jaws
Female M. garuda wasps look like most other wasp species, but the males grow long, sickle-shaped jaws.
The males' flattened faces and large, spiked jaws may be clever adaptations to protect a nest that contains vulnerable larvae, she suggested.
"Other wasps of the same species often rob burrows for food, and parasites try to get in there, too," she said. "There's a serious advantage to having the nest guarded. This may be how the male helps guarantee his paternity."
(See "Pictures: Wasps Turn Ladybugs Into Flailing "Zombies.")
In general, "we don't know what this wasp does," Kimsey said. "But it probably feeds its larvae grasshoppers or katydids, like other wasps in its subfamily."
"Mythical" Wasp Under Threat
Kimsey and co-author Michael Ohl, of Berlin's Humboldt University, caught their first glimpse of the new wasp in Indonesia's Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense, where the bugs had been kept in storage since 1930. Ohl also found unidentified specimens at the Humboldt Museum in Berlin.
On a 2009 expedition, the team found more wasps at a cacao plantation in the southeastern mountains of Sulawesi. In naming M. garuda, the team looked to the national symbol of Indonesia: a mythical half-human, half-bird creature in the Hindu religion called Garuda.
Although as many as a hundred thousand species of insects may live on Sulawesi, Kimsey suspects "only half have names."
But the fates of these species—including the newfound wasp—are in jeopardy. Since the 1960s forests in the region have been increasingly leveled to plant several types of crops. (Read about rain forest threats.)
"The place where we collected wasps is slated to be an open-pit nickel mine," Kimsey said.
"Just thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach."
It looks like Darth Vader.
I doubt they're actually new. Probably been around for millions of years. Gotta love the human vanity and hubris of the reporting, though :-)
I am the King of WASPS.
just in time to take on all these wayward race hustlers!
It looks like the PREDATOR.
kill-em all... lest they come here
RE “all of the wasps caught so far have been dead”.
Piss poor writing from a so-called Nat. Geog. professional.
You can’t “catch” something that is already dead. You can “find” it, “discover its’ body”, etc. but you only can “catch” something that is alive or in motion (i.e. a baseball).
Another example of what is wrong with our educational system.
Yes it does. (Had to look didn’t know what the Predator was)
They have good coffee there. At least, the Indonesian Sulawesi beans at Fairway are awesome. For all I know, they really grow them in Tijuana.
Arrggh!!!!
This is not pisspoor writing, this is pisspoor thinking taught pisspoorly by a pisspoor educational system and supported all through adulthood by pisspoor peers of equally pisspoor rearing/education.
You should have included a link to the article, along with the pic of the wasp’s head.
How are these any different than tarantula wasps that are huge, paralize their victim and drag them into their den?
"Just thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach."
Collecting a useful metal. Creating new jobs. Killing wasps. What's not to like? :)
We all typos and spell check can result in humorous outcomes, but trust me when I tell you that J school grads have no real ‘education’ to speak of. In my time at newspapers I spent more time rewriting articles from so called journalists than any other task.
And I’m just a regular schmuck, not an English professor..
These people could NOT string a coherent paragraph together. NO BS, I’d come home and correct a far better written essay from my then 12 YO daughter than the verbage put to type by ‘paid professionals’ at work.
Looks like you have never heard of zombies.
Norm, I knew a brilliant NatGeo staff writer/photographer many years ago. He told me he and many other of the magazine's old-timers were being squeezed out by all the new hires from "the Missouri School of Journalism." That's when the magazine made a sharp Left turn and became the "environmentally-correct" (if sometimes illiterate) propaganda organ it is today. To misquote Marshall McCluhan, at NatGeo these days, the message is the medium.
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