A Wasp Never Forgets, Apparently

Books have covers, or rather cover art, for a reason - to give the reader an idea of the content of the book, hence cover art and cover style exist. Yes, wasps are jerks that can seemingly smell fear and sting the slowest runner when agitated, but they are so much more than that. Really, in some cases, they are so much worse than previously understood.

For example, wasps have specific memories. As in, a wasp can remember an individual wasp and can certainly remember you specifically. It was previously understood that this was not the case and assumed that wasps only had social memory such that they remember how to behave in a hive setting or remember that "people are bad" after having a negative interaction with them. That's right, a wasp might have a poor interaction with another wasp and remember that it might remember you if it happens to survive. More realistically, wasps use their memories for recognizing each other and not just to "hold a grudge" against specific people.

Unlike bees, wasps can have multiple queens within their hives. The queens battle each other for rank, and since fights are semi-regular it is advantageous for the wasps to know who they were fighting and remember who the victor was. Otherwise, there would be an endless loop of impossible to win battles with no point other than to agitate the hive. Hence, there is benefit to being able to identify individual wasps- it makes sense to be able to remember comrades and enemies as people so who is to say that insects should not or cannot do the same.

It is interesting that previously, this was not something that scientists had not observed, but in the same sense, understanding insects (more specifically insects considered pests) does not really turn a profit unless the study is done in order to enhance knowledge around controlling populations. Notice that there seems to be more studies and coverage on insects that help us, such as bees, over insects that are considered pests such as wasps, termites, and roaches. When there is coverage or a study it seems to usually be centered around deterrents or pesticides aimed towards those insects and not the finer points concerning their social patterns nor intelligence.

Would you be surprised to find out that there are more than 100,000 species of wasp around the world ranging from the paper wasp to the murder hornet (yes, hornets are a type of wasp, as are yellow jackets). Would you also be surprised to find that many of the studies involving wasps are centered around either killing them or weaponizing them for agricultural purposes? You read that correctly! Since solitary wasps parasitize most other insects instead of hosting larvae in a hive they are incredibly valuable as biological pest control.

Think about the tomato, for example. From horn worms to whiteflies there are a lot of pests that will attack, eat, and ultimately kill the crop. If the farmer is trying to avoid heavy use of pesticides and does not want to cultivate a genetically altered strain of tomato that is less appealing to pests the only other option is to weaponize a natural deterrent or predator and why not the solitary wasp? Solitary wasp larvae eventually kill their host and parasitize almost every pest insect so, it makes sense that the solitary wasp would be a choice for pest control despite the chance that the wasp may hold a personal grudge against an individual person for agitating it. The average lifespan of a wasp is 12-22 days, so if one can outlast that time frame, the fear of being stung by a grudge holding insect should be over. Or, a wasp/hive grudge could be used as an excuse to work from home for a month. The more you know!

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