#ostiole

Figs are made of wasps. Sort of.

Forget everything you thought you knew about the fig. It is not a fruit. Early humans domesticated fig trees before they bothered with grain crops. The fig does exist outside of Fig Newtons. And, inside many figs, the corpses of wasps have been entombed.

Here's what we mean: First off, a fig is technically not a fruit, but a type of inflorescence known as a #spadix. (Big science words, but unavoidable, Check the #Hashtags) That's a bundle of multiple flowers and seeds sealed away in a bulbous ovoid.

In order to get pollen from one of these internal flowers to the next, nature had to devise a creature that felt like boring into the spherical stem and scooting from flower to seed. Enter the fig wasp.

Sergio Jansen Gonzalez (via Phys.org)

Using an #ovipositor, Fig wasp queens squeeze through a tiny opening in the fig's #ostiole, a sort of vegetable pore. They think they're just there to lay eggs, which they are, but meanwhile they're spreading fig pollen, inadvertently fertilizing the seeds. It's a one-way trip. Once the queen lays her eggs, she dies inside the pulpy center of the fig. Then the fig digests her body.

She becomes one with the fig. When her eggs hatch, the wingless male wasps dig a hole through the fig's lining. The winged females escape to start the whole process over again, but the males spend their entire lives inside the fig, eventually succumbing to the same fate that took their queen.

#Under The Banyan

But don't let this turn you off of figs forever. If you buy a fig at the grocery store, it's probably a domesticated variety, which doesn't host fig wasps. Pluck a fig from a wild fig tree, though, and chow down, and you're probably going to end up eating some wasp bits—which are not strictly vegan, we're sorry to say.

#inflourescence-Spadix

http://visual.merriam-webster.com/plants-gardening/plants/flower/types-inflorescences.php

#ostiole

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ostiole

#parisitoidwasp

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195667113000864

#underthebanyan