An ‘alien-like’ parasitic wasp that sucks blood from its host before eating it from the inside out has been discovered in the Amazon.
Scientists at Utah State University identified the new species while surveying the National Reserve of Allpahuayo-Mishana in Peru.
The team collected an adult female with a giant almond-shaped head and tube-like organ it uses to lay eggs in victims that include caterpillars, beetles and spiders.
The new parasitic wasp’s name, Capitojoppa amazonica, combines a reference to its large, alien-like head, ‘capito,’ with the name for a similar wasp genus, ‘joppa.’
The newly discovered, bright yellow wasp, Capitojoppa amazonica (above), is not just ‘alien-like’ for its large almond-shaped head. The creature lays its eggs inside its victims, turning prey into incubators, not unlike the feared ‘xenomorph’ from Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror classic Alien
Once hatched, the larvae of this newly discovered parasitoid wasp feed off the insides of its mother’s insect prey like a vampire. The young wasp starts by sucking out its host’s bloodlike ‘hemolymph’ fluid before feasting on the creature from the inside out
According to the new study’s lead author, this predatory wasp, biologist Brandon Claridge, is known as a ‘solitary endoparasitoid’: a parasite that lays a single egg inside its host, which then kills that host as it matures.
While the wasp has proven to have a diverse appetite for victims, including caterpillars, beetles and spiders, a mother C. amazonica won’t just lay her one egg in any old bug.
‘Once the host is located and mounted, the female will frantically stroke it with her antennae,’ Claridge, a doctoral candidate at Utah State University, told Live Science via email.
‘If acceptable, the female will deposit a single egg inside the host by piercing it with her ovipositor (a tube-like, egg-laying organ).’
Sometimes, however, mother C. amazonica wasps will enjoy some vampiric activity of their own.
‘Females will even stab the host with the ovipositor,’ Claridge told Live Science, ‘and feed without laying an egg as it helps gain nutrients for egg maturation.’
Claridge has been working with a team of researchers, entomologists from the University of Turku in Finland, who have cataloged new species in Peru’s Allpahuyao-Mishana National Reserve since the 1990s.
Finnish researchers have helped in conservation efforts at Peru’s Allpahuayo-Mishana reserve since the 1990s. The researchers said that the region’s complex geological history has led to the development of several different types of rainforest ecosystems in Allpahuayo-Mishana
The scientists have used large, netted tent-like devices, called malaise traps, to collect samples of the wealth of unique insects living in Allpahuyao-Mishana, which is home to several different kinds of rainforest – some that are flooded seasonally and some built on white sand
The identifying sample or ‘holotype’ of the male version of the new wasp, C. amazonica, (left) with its less sophisticated antennae and more images of the female ‘holotype’ (right)
The researchers have used large, netted tent-like devices, called malaise traps, to collect samples of the wealth of unique insects living in Allpahuyao-Mishana, which is home to multiple different kinds of rainforest, some that are flooded seasonally and some built on white sand.
‘The species biodiversity of many organisms is highest on the whole planet at Allpahuayo-Mishana,’ according to study co-author Ilari Sääksjärvi, a professor of biodiversity research at the University of Turku.
‘Allpahuayo-Mishana is a part of the Amazon that has an unprecedented abundance of speciesm, due to the region’s complex geological history,’ Sääksjärvi said in a statement from the university.
‘Unfortunately,’ he added, ‘the area is currently changing rapidly due to human activities.’
Peru’s Allpahuyao-Mishana region first interested scientists in the late 1980s — when an American botanist named Alwyn Gentry discovered a small patch of rainforest that had the then-largest-ever number of different tree species growing in a single location.
‘Gentry wanted to discover how many tree species can grow in 2.5 acres (one hectare) of the Amazon rainforest,’ Sääksjärvi said.
‘In his study, he discovered nearly 300 tree species in that one 2.5-acre research patch.’
‘We have studied the insect biodiversity in the same research areas since 1998,’ he noted, ‘and report some of the highest numbers of insect species in the world from this region.’
The University of Turku’s biodiversity unit said that they are committed to investigating, in their words, ‘how the impact of human activities, such as climate change, alter the nature in the rainforest.’
The researchers noted that this deadly parasitic wasp was just one of 109 new species the team has discovered via their malaise traps in this national reserve.
‘We have discovered several species unknown to science, which we will describe in the future,’ Claridge said in a statement.
‘The current study kicks off this research.’
