Wasps create zombie roaches

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Wasps create zombie roaches

Postby aquaphase » Fri Feb 03, 2006 4:46 pm

We are sooooo in trouble

Wasp performs roach-brain-surgery to make zombie slave-roaches
Ampulex compressa is a wasp that has evolved to tackle roaches, insert a stinger into their brains and disable their escape reflexes. This lets the wasp use the roach's antennae to steer the roach to its lair, where it can lay its egg in it. Parasite Rex author Carl Zimmer tells the story in gooey, graphic detail:

The wasp slips her stinger through the roach's exoskeleton and directly into its brain. She apparently use ssensors along the sides of the stinger to guide it through the brain, a bit like a surgeon snaking his way to an appendix with a laparoscope. She continues to probe the roach's brain until she reaches one particular spot that appears to control the escape reflex. She injects a second venom that influences these neurons in such a way that the escape reflex disappears.

From the outside, the effect is surreal. The wasp does not paralyze the cockroach. In fact, the roach is able to lift up its front legs again and walk. But now it cannot move of its own accord. The wasp takes hold of one of the roach's antennae and leads it--in the words of Israeli scientists who study Ampulex--like a dog on a leash.

The zombie roach crawls where its master leads, which turns out to be the wasp's burrow. The roach creeps obediently into the burrow and sits there quietly, while the wasp plugs up the burrow with pebbles. Now the wasp turns to the roach once more and lays an egg on its underside. The roach does not resist. The egg hatches, and the larva chews a hole in the side of the roach. In it goes.

The larva grows inside the roach, devouring the organs of its host, for about eight days. It is then ready to weave itself a cocoon--which it makes within the roach as well. After four more weeks, the wasp grows to an adult. It breaks out of its cocoon, and out of the roach as well. Seeing a full-grown wasp crawl out of a roach suddenly makes those Alien movies look pretty derivative.


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Postby roach » Fri Feb 03, 2006 5:05 pm

wasps are pretty fucking awesome.

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Postby aquaphase » Fri Feb 03, 2006 7:10 pm

need brain surgery? pedals1
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Postby roach » Fri Feb 03, 2006 7:22 pm

i'm thinking i need to keep my antennae on the downlow.

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Postby sam » Fri Feb 03, 2006 7:36 pm

need brain surgery? pedals1
YES! We should genetically engineer variants of these wasps to tackle different neurological disorders. They will have to be a lot larger in order to penetrate human skulls with their stingers, though.

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Postby roach » Fri Feb 03, 2006 7:40 pm

need brain surgery? pedals1
YES! We should genetically engineer variants of these wasps to tackle different neurological disorders. They will have to be a lot larger in order to penetrate human skulls with their stingers, though.
we can use my wasp-expander to make them bigger. I've needed a use for it, this is a perfect fit!

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Re: Wasps create zombie roaches

Postby mere1975 » Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:11 pm

Wasp performs roach-brain-surgery to make zombie slave-roaches
I thought this would be an article about Jason Roach's undergraduate years at SMU. . .

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Re: Wasps create zombie roaches

Postby roach » Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:02 pm

Wasp performs roach-brain-surgery to make zombie slave-roaches
I thought this would be an article about Jason Roach's undergraduate years at SMU. . .

- Mere "w.a.s.p." 1975
ohhhhhhhhhh they tried.

ro"fucking white people"ach


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