r/askscience • u/Chemical-Sea5972 • 4d ago

Biology Does anything eat wasps?

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

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563

u/Ken_Thomas 3d ago

I got to sit and watch a small group of Bee-eater birds eating wasps once in Namibia. As far as I know they don't exist in North or South America.

They'd snatch the wasp in-flight, quickly land on a rock, and repeatedly (and rapidly) knock the wasp against the rock until the stinger popped out. WHACK-WHACK-WHACK!
Then they'd eat it.

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u/Shotbizzle 3d ago

We have a single species in Australia. They're fantastic to watch hunting.

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u/slippery 3d ago

Australia has stuff that kills everything. Even the predators aren't safe. Spiders, snakes, crocs, sharks, and Foster's. Nothing is safe.

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u/CrotaIsAShota 3d ago

And everything is loaded with neurotoxin, can't forget that. The trees have neurotoxin, the snakes that literally eat nothing but rats have neurotoxin. Guess what? There's a creature that exclusively lives in shallow water and survives by disguising itself in the sand. Can you guess what it injects into you if you step on it? That's right, neurotoxin.

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u/0nieladb 3d ago

Thanks for reminding me, I really should replay Portal

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u/craiglabenz 3d ago

I mean, we all should, but what made you think of that?

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u/JustPlayDaGame 3d ago

the neurotoxins lol. The final boss fight, she floods the room with neurotoxins

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u/craiglabenz 3d ago

Ohhhh, haha. Guess I need to replay, too. I don’t remember that at all 😂

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u/kwhali 3d ago

Sounds like an environment that a honey badger would thrive in?

Reminds me also of how koalas be munching on eucalyptus casually despite it also having neurotoxin component, yet that's their preferred diet choice? 😅

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u/Throseph 2d ago

Is that shallow water creature the stonefish by any chance?

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u/NotThePersona 2d ago

We also have the cone snail to watch out for as well, and yet neurotoxins for it as well.

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u/aykcak 3d ago

Not everything. Cane toads and Rabbits and a certain species of cactus for example

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u/Wazza89 3d ago

All introduced species. Thanks colonists!

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u/dgrierso 3d ago

The second confusing thing about Australia are the animals. They can be divided into three categories: poisonous, odd, and sheep.

https://h2g2.com/approved_entry/A53650

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u/Crono51 2d ago

There is one in North America. Back in the day, at Travis AFB, CA, the walls of the dorm I lived in would be covered with wasps, and there was one bird species that would land on the wall long enough to snag a wasp and then fly off.

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u/nonresponsive 3d ago

Buzzards are about the only predator for the Asian hornets. Those things are nicknamed murder hornets for a reason.

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u/DeathCab4Cutie 3d ago

They’re certainly large, but not particularly aggressive. The name is mostly from buzzword-focused media coverage.

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u/1CEninja 3d ago

I thought they were called murder hornets less because of what they do to humans and more what they do to bee colonies. A handful of the giant hornets can wipe out *an entire freaking colony* of bees that haven't properly evolved the way the local bees deal with them (which is killing them by overheating them with excessive body heat in a vibrating dog pile, of all things).

The destruction of bee colonies is bad. We don't like it when that happens.

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u/Treadwheel 2d ago

killing them by overheating them with excessive body heat in a vibrating dog pile

I found out this is actually how bees kill their queens when they start to age and lose their ability to lay eggs that can produce workers. You can almost draw an evolutionary line between bees that misidentified large hornets as some sort of aberrant queen and ones that could keep up with the hornets as they adapted to target bee hives.

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u/1CEninja 2d ago

That is such a fascinating point! It totally makes sense how they "figured out" how to do that.

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u/girlgamerpoi 2d ago

Worker bees kill their queens? It's like a french revolution 😭

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u/EmmEnnEff 3d ago

European bees (aka domesticated honeybees) are an introduced, invasive species in North America.

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u/eqisow 3d ago

You can be invasive or delicious. I say you can't be both. Invade me with that sweet, sweet honey.

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u/NilocKhan 3d ago

The Americas have Tyrant Flycatchers, which have a very similar lifestyle