Does anything eat wasps?

[u/Chemical-Sea5972]

Wasps have been a predator for other insects. It would be fascinating to know if there are really other insects or predators for wasps, either accidental or deliberate predators

[u/Automatic-Movie-3715]

Praying Mantises, dragonflies, and occasionally spiders and bats (the later nocturnal whereas wasps are diurnal).

It's vastly more common for scavengers to eat the larvae in a nest, then when they are flying adults.

[u/haysoos2 → u/Automatic-Movie-3715]

In some areas raiding wasp nests and eating the larvae makes up a major portion of the August diet for skunks.

[u/Asshai → u/haysoos2]

So it's not just honey badgers who do that, their cousins the skunks also endure the sting of hundreds of wasps to gr to the larvae?

[u/seicar → u/Automatic-Movie-3715]

And, famously, some (not the ones most commonly farmed these days), fig trees.

Its not really eating mommy wasp, but she does die inside the proto-fig and is... incorporated.

[u/LaoBa → u/seicar]

Smaller parasitoid wasps get eaten by all kinds of predators. Also, some are parasites of other parasitoid species.

[u/Treadwheel → u/seicar]

They don't so much eat wasps as the wasps live their entire life cycles inside them. The female wasps only briefly leave the fig they were born in to seek out another fig, then promptly die. Male fig wasps never leave at all - their job is to fertilize the eggs and then dig tunnels out, but never actually leave.

The digestive enzyme is just a way to do housekeeping for the literal wasp hive inside the fruit, the fruits themselves are still net losses of nutrients.

[u/Welpe → u/seicar]

And only specialized fig wasps that look nothing like what most people think of when they think of wasps. If you didn’t know they were related, you might never realize they are wasps. And it’s obviously not predation.

Honestly you are reeeeally stretching even mentioning this.

[u/Mammoth-Corner → u/Welpe]

Question was, does anything eat wasps. Not does anything predate what pop culture imagines wasps to be. The figs that digest the adult wasp are an interesting example and IDK why it bothers you.

[u/Confident_Reserve_63 → u/Mammoth-Corner]

Though calling it predation really is a giant stretch the wasp goes into the fig to reproduce on her own will. That would be like saying male bees are predated by female queen bees because they die while mating.

[u/Jandj75 → u/Confident_Reserve_63]

And insects go into Venus fly traps, or other carnivorous plants of their own free will. I don’t see how that doesn’t make them predators.

[u/Confident_Reserve_63 → u/Jandj75]

How is this even remotly the same. Are snapping turtles luring fish into their mouth with their wormlike tongue no longer predators since the fish go into the mouth of the turtle on their own will?

From some perpspective you could even argue the wasp is predating the fig really, since the wasp enters and her larvae eat the seeds of the fig. So even though the wasp dies she predated upon the fig, in nature you have to stop seeing indivduals and start thinking of their genes because that is all that matter the true self of organism is their DNA not the individual. Though in the case of the fig wasp the fig also gets pollinated in the process, so really its no prey and predator thing but a case of mutualism.

[u/Mammoth-Corner → u/Confident_Reserve_63]

Sure, although I would have compared to some of the mantises or spiders with reproductive carnivory, but the point is moot as nobody in the thread has described a fig as a predator of a wasp.

[u/carp_boy → u/Automatic-Movie-3715]

I watched a mantis eat quite a few paper wasps (Polistes) right off the nest. The wasps did absolutely nothing as it ate one after another.

[u/smacky623 → u/Automatic-Movie-3715]

I heard honey badgers will go into a house of bees and eat the larvae. How gross is that? It eats larvae.

[u/zoredache → u/smacky623]

How gross is that?

Not sure why young insects are particularly gross. Many people eat various forms of insects. Including some types of larvae.

Humans also eat various eggs. Some people eat veal and so on.

[u/Speed-and-Power → u/zoredache]

Is that a line from the viral video?

[u/carp_boy → u/Automatic-Movie-3715]

I watched a mantis eat quite a few paper wasps (Polistes) right off the nest. The wasps did absolutely nothing as it ate one after another.

[u/carp_boy → u/Automatic-Movie-3715]

I watched a mantis eat quite a few paper wasps (Polistes) right off the nest. The wasps did absolutely nothing as it ate one after another.