F#[k neighbors who don't care for trees and F#[k bees.

[Clematis]

I've always found cicadas kinda cool. I've never noticed the wasp known as a cicada killer that takes them back to a nest to feed their eggs.

Which reminds me of finding giant hornworms eating my tomato plants -- literally can eat them to twigs overnight -- and yet still feeling uneasy when the brachonid wasps use them to deposit eggs in their backs that slowly digest the living hornworms for nourishment. A picture I took a few years ago:

 

[Charris]

@Clematis wow. What did you do? Did you kill them or just let them hatch?

 

[Clematis]

@Charris I was conflicted. This photo was of a tomato plant branch I had snipped off and paced on a black tray. I destroyed the hornworms and wasp eggs. However I wondered if removing all hornworms (they are huge yet so perfectly camouflaged that they are hard to find on tomato plants) would mean that their only predator (brachonid wasps) would have nowhere to reproduce. It takes nearly a week for all those eggs to kill the hornworm. Meanwhile the hornworm is decimating my tomato plants. For a while -- a short while -- I pinched off branches and put them in a big bucket so perhaps the eggs could mature without the hornworm killing my plants. But eventually if I saw a hornworm, I pinched off the leaf it was on and stepped on it. Really gross as these things are as big as my pinky finger.

(FYI the horn and "eye" that looks like the head, is actually its butt.)

 

[Munchkin]

I've always found cicadas kinda cool. I've never noticed the wasp known as a cicada killer that takes them back to a nest to feed their eggs.

Which reminds me of finding giant hornworms eating my tomato plants -- literally can eat them to twigs overnight -- and yet still feeling uneasy when the brachonid wasps use them to deposit eggs in their backs that slowly digest the living hornworms for nourishment. A picture I took a few years ago:

View attachment 1088

Very cool picture!

 

[Munchkin]

So now I had to go look at pics of cicada killers. I have seen these before but not often and I had no idea what they were.

 

[CaraOC]

Damn!! I just read back some and I'm grossed out, itch all over, then threw up in my mouth a little!!! I am blissfully unaware of the gazillions of wasp species thankfully. But I hate all bugs and yucky stuff. Now geese and swans!! Those are evil bastards. I was terrorized by those fuckers as a kid.

 

[JackieOnLine]

y'all are icking me out as well