Hornworm with parasitic wasp larvae.

I think there are quite a few coleopterists (people who study or collect beetles) that will be looking closely at this…

“The overwhelming evidence now supports the fact that there are more parasitic wasps, and therefore hymenoptera, than there are beetles,” said Forbes.

While true parasites often don’t kill their hosts, parasitoids always kill their hosts eventually. They eat their hosts from the inside out while they’re still alive, often manipulating the hosts’ behaviors for their own ends. “They emerge from their [host’s] body just like the Alien,” said Sam Droege, an entomologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Laurel, Maryland who was not involved in the study. Some parasitoid wasps use other parasitoid wasps as their hosts, and sometimes even those invaders are themselves parasitized…

Mr. Crypto from “As the Crickets Chirp”…

Click here to read the full article “Move Over, Beetles: The New Champions of Diversity Are Parasitic Wasps” by Nala Rogers for Inside Science.