Comment on spoopy figs

unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• definitely_AI@feddit.online ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Nature is so fucking WEEEEIRD

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  • denaggels@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Actually it’s not. This is 100% human fault. Fig trees and fig wasps from the same (natural) area do not have this problem. When (I believe California?) imported a ton of trees and wasps to cultivate giant fig farms, they just didn’t care that the wasps they got would die during pollination. It was a known issue, that just got ignored. Completely preventable.

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    • definitely_AI@feddit.online ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Nature is not weird? What that person described is not weird? It’s weird. You cannot convince me nature is not weird. Because nature is so fucking WEEEEEEIRDDDD

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      • denaggels@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Fair

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    • protist@retrofed.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      You’re just plain wrong. Figs and fig wasps have been coevolving for millions of years, and this is just how these species of fig and wasp evolved. Lots of animals have evolved to die after they reproduce. This is nature and has nothing to do with commercial fig growers

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    • TriplePlaid@wetshav.ing ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      What problem do you mean?

      The blastophaga psenes wasps in Turkey die during pollination just like the blastophaga psenes wasps in California do.

      Here is more information about how figs (and fig wasps) came to be cultivated in the US.

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    • Poxlox@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Is this a joke???

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• Prontomomo@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  If you look at the detail in the ghosty wasp, it’s clear that it’s just an edited image of a wasp pasted onto a fig

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  • Jestzer@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I wonder where they got that image from…

    The first result for a fig wasp in a search engine? Nah, that’d be too obvious!

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• SendMePhotos@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I went and looked that up on my own and I could’ve just clicked into the comments?!

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  • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    When i came to the post there were no comments to quell my worries so i had to check and share what i found :D

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    • snooggums@piefed.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      10/10 would read again!

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• ignotum@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  nowhere as big as in this image

  Yeah when they’re alive, but everyone knows you grow larger when you become a ghost

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• Smoogs@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Yes however it’s a ghost wasp. It can take whatever phantom size it damn well pleases

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• wizzim@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This is interesting. Regarding a sentence:

  Allow them to mature

  Does it mean the figs cannot mature without the wasp ? Does it mean that each ripe fig has been visited by a wasp ?

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  • flora_explora@beehaw.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yes exactly. They are both dependent on each other in that way.

    And to add on to that, figs are super important food trees in the tropics, because they are the only trees that produce fruits all year around. (Because they have to, otherwise the fig wasp population couldn’t sustain itself.) So many animal species are also dependent on the steady food source of fig trees (btw most look very different from the common fig tree, Ficus carica).

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  • SlurpingPus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I mean, fruit with seeds is formed from a flower after pollination. It’s just that on the figs, the flower is apparently inside the unripe fruit.

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• SlurpingPus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Not much of a life. Larvae can already be argued to be the main stage of life in many insects, as they get to chill around and munch on plants for ages, while adults have to fly somewhere, shag, lay eggs and croak. With these wasps, the adult male has it even more straightforward, and the female seems to not even get to enjoy the larval stage.

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• Zoomboingding@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard told me they were big though

  kinggizzard.bandcamp.com/track/big-fig-wasp

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  • SilverFlame@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    What a cool band, I was the orchestra manager on their first stop of their Phantom Island Tour. Their drummer is a force of nature

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    • Zoomboingding@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Hell yeah, it’s a goal of mine to catch a show

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