The Omega Drive

Puccinia albescens, a rust fungus, growing all over these townhall clock plants.

All photos from April.

Namib Desert, Namibia

Pronouns

An accent

Credits: photo 1, photo 2

This inconspicuous wasp is the only known trigonalid wasp found in Europe. What's so special about that? Well, trigonalid wasps are.... weird, even by wasp standards. They're hyperparasitoids, meaning they use other parasitoids that are already parasitoiding something else as their hosts. That part isn't odd for wasps though, and hyperparasitoidism can go several hosts of hosts deep. Trigonalids are weird for how they get to their target— which is by having their eggs purposefully eaten by a creature that either already is or will likely be infected by a parasitoid. The trigonalid eggs will wait to hatch until another parasitoid is detected and then they'll eat them up from within the creature that originally ate them.