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You’ve probably heard rumors about figs being filled with small wasps. Without the tiny bugs, the Ficus species, the producer of figs, would go extinct.
Fig trees either produce hermaphrodite fruit or female figs; only the female figs are palatable to humans. In exchange for a safe place for their eggs and larvae, fig wasps help pollinate the ficus by crawling inside the tiny hole in the apex of the fig, called the ostiole, without knowing whether they crawled into a caprifig or a fig. If the ...
After pollination, there are several species of non-pollinating wasps that deposit their eggs before the figs harden. These wasps act as parasites to either the fig or possibly the pollinating wasps. As the fig develops, the wasp eggs hatch and develop into larvae. After going through the pupal stage, the mature male’s first act is to mate ...
The winged female wasps can fly over long distances before finding another fig to oviposit in it, while the male dies after chewing a hole. As the fig is closed by a tight ostiole, the female wasps have developed adaptations to enter. First, the mandibles of the female wasps have developed specialized mandibular appendages to help them crawl ...
In the fig and wasps co-obligate relationship, female wasps have developed morphological traits, such as elongated heads and easily detachable antennae and wings, that allow them to enter the fig ostile and lay eggs and collect pollen, and likewise, as the fig matures it produces nourishment for the wasp larvae. [9]
Figs and fig wasps have had a symbiotic relationship throughout history. [8] The fig wasps need the figs in order to reproduce, while the figs rely on the wasps to aid them in their pollination. [9] In wilder forms of the plant, without pollination the young developing fig will fall off of the tree without ripening.
The tear-dropped pod know as a fig may seem like a fruit, but it's actually a flower. And that's just one of the jaw-dropping facts to learn about them.
Ficus (/ ˈ f aɪ k ə s / [2] or / ˈ f iː k ə s / [3] [4]) is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes and hemiepiphytes in the family Moraceae.Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few species extending into the semi-warm temperate zone.