Sunday, January 24, 2010

Mymaridae (Fairy Wasps)

Fairy Wasps are quite possibly the smallest insects to have ever existed. Male fairy wasps live out their entire life cycles where their mother oviposited them, trapped inside a water beetle egg with their sisters. Inbreeding is the norm. For this species it's almost becoming ridiculous to have males at all (this one doesn't). How the fairy wasp gets away with all this inbreeding is currently unknown. One popular idea is that a beneficial complex of genes exists that would be scrambled by the process of random mating...which may or may not be right.


1 comment:

  1. ta this really helped me with my science homework!!! =D

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