FYI they are very fucking small nowhere near as big as in this image. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fig_wasp
Forcing her way through the ostiole, the mated mature female often loses her wings and most of her antennae. To facilitate her passage through the ostiole, the underside of the female’s head is covered with short spines that provide purchase on the walls of the ostiole.
In depositing her eggs, the female also deposits pollen she picked up from her original host fig. This pollinates some of the female flowers on the inside surface of the fig and allows them to mature. After the female wasp lays her eggs and follows through with pollination, she dies.[15]
After pollination, there are several species of non-pollinating wasps that deposit their eggs before the figs harden. These wasps act as parasites to either the fig or possibly the pollinating wasps.
As the fig develops, the wasp eggs hatch and develop into larvae. After going through the pupal stage, the mature male’s first act is to mate with a female - before the female hatches. Consequently, the female will emerge pregnant. The males of many species lack wings and cannot survive outside the fig for a sustained period of time. After mating, a male wasp begins to dig out of the fig, creating a tunnel through which the females escape.[16]
Once out of the fig, the male wasps quickly die. The females find their way out, picking up pollen as they do. They then fly to another tree of the same species, where they deposit their eggs and allow the cycle to begin again.
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
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!
I went and looked that up on my own and I could’ve just clicked into the comments?!
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
nowhere as big as in this image
Yeah when they’re alive, but everyone knows you grow larger when you become a ghost
Yes however it’s a ghost wasp. It can take whatever phantom size it damn well pleases
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 things way more straightforward for him, and the female seems to not even get to enjoy the larval stage.
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 ?
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).
I mean, a 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.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard told me they were big though
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
Hell yeah, it’s a goal of mine to catch a show
This is why fig newtons taste like delicious hate
I use them when I need to channel the ghosts of 1000 angry wasps.
hey I think you might be allergic to fig newtons
No wonder God hates figs
TIL figs aren’t vegan
I’m a vegan, although not super strict. But I knew some terror vegans who do not consider vigs vegan.
The definition of “vegan” differs. Like, I don’t like products that had a nervous system. So technically I could eat oysters. But some vegans consider oranges not to be vegan because there might be an animal product in the pesticides used on oranges. Some claim they only use plant based products, but they get mad when I ask them about fungi, as their cell structure looks more like an animal cell than a plant cell (I love to make terror vegans mad).
Being vegan means you buy products which fit your idea of being vegan.
And sadly for some it means you need to be a fucking asshole to anyone you meet.
Regarding your last paragraph: that’s unrelated. There are also lots of insufferably vocal meat eaters who feel personally attacked when someone else doesn’t religiously stuff themselves with meat every meal.
I know zero (0) vocal vegans but 3 meat eaters who make a point on hating vegans and sometimes make it sound like they eat extra meat to spite vegans.
One of them once said to me a restaurant can only be good if it has no vegetarian options.
Someone has never tried falafel…
Yeah, I usually don’t say anything, unless it’s unaoidable and then I usually just say I don’t eat all that much meat.
Most will leave it at that, but I’ll happily answer. I don’t really want to yuck people’s yums, and the food industry is a bit of a special interest of mine.
Advertising is one hell of a drug. Everybody running around eating bacon and butter, and beef tallow, and haven’t had a gram of fiber, getting colon cancer at forty.
Candidly, I think your vocal vegan is like your radical feminist, or social justice warrior, or diversity hire: mostly made up.
meat eaters who feel personally attacked when someone else doesn’t religiously stuff themselves with meat every meal.
Oh, do tell.
I live in Bavaria. There are multiple politicians who don’t get tired to performatively eat sausages and try to make laws that mandate calling oat milk “oat drink” and vegan burgers/schnitzel/… anything else. As if anyone would ever get confused by that. There’s a common joke that they should rename “scouring milk” to “scouring drink” otherwise people get confused!!!
But do they realize all atoms eventually cycle through the ecosystem?
I’m sure all carbon atoms were part of animal at some point. I guess your fake vegans are just molecular vegans and not atomic vegans.
Veganism are the consumption practices of people advocating for animal liberation. It’s not just about diet but also leather jackets/zoo visits etc. It’s not like being part of an animal that imbues the individual molecules with some mystic energy that renders them off limits, it’s that 99.99% of the time that obtaining these molecules in sufficient quantities requires overstepping boundaries of consent if not outright murder/slavery.
But I would consider scavenged meat for instance vegan, I still wouldn’t because meat gives me the ick now, but I don’t see how it is contrary to animal liberation (provided it doesn’t disrupt other animals mourning rituals or something similar). Or rescued sheep still require shearing. It’s not as brutal as farmers shearing and obviously not done with the wool in mind but rather the sheep. So the sheep are typically shorn(?) sooner than enslaved sheep and not as close to the skin, making “vegan wool” quite a bit harder to work with, but I would consider socks made out of that wool vegan.
That is one definition of vegan, and you seem to be happy living by it. But others might have other definitions. A good chunk does not even share your motivation for being vegan, there are plenty of religious practices, dietary reasons, ecological concerns… That doesn’t diminish your definition of it, but that is something to keep in mind when talking about other people.
No this is what veganism is. Veganism goes back to the Vegan Society and it’s fight for the rights of non-human animals. Many people claim to be vegan without actually being vegan and I will not be diluting the definition. Veganism is at it’s core about animal rights. There are plenty of reasons to go with a plant-based diet. A plant-based diet is part of veganism, but they are very much not the same thing. If someone claims to be vegan but still goes to the zoo or buys pets they did not understand what veganism is.
Edit: here is the vegan societies definition
“Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”
Hahaha next time I meet one who is starting a discussion to fish (pun intended) for something to trigger on, I now have the perfect comeback 😎
“you’re just a molecular vegan, not an atomic vegan, you’re just a poser”
I’m just saying this specific fruit has a literal animal inside of it
All fruits have that, if you enhance your view enough. Put any fruit under a microscope and it’s crawling with creatures.
Where do we draw the line? Seems like it’s impossible not to eat an animal
Also depends on whether you consider fungi an animal of a plant. As their cell structure resembles more of animal cells than plant cells. And fungi are everywhere. Humans, animals and plants would all die if fungi would seize to exist. They are in our body, create our food and medicine, they are the cycle of life as they break down dead tissue, they feed plants and trees. The oldest living organism is a fungus. They are what keep us all alive, they are basically mother earth. And we eat that. Seeing The Last Of Us suddenly makes a lot of sense. Revenge of the fungi.
Idk isn’t that like saying all animal pollinated plants are not vegan?
Well, this one’s got a literal animal inside of it… Is all I’m saying
I guess it depends on if people think roadkill is vegan; the dead wasp is part of the life cycle of the wasp/fig symbiosis so its going to die well before humans intervene.
Imo the argument could be made that by clearing land for vegetables there’s a large reduction in habitable natural environments. This results in things dying that normally wouldn’t. Especially true when you consider pesticides.
So is the problem the dead bug in the fig or the dead bug outside, say, an apple?
I’ve only been vegan for eight years. I really don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ve never really researched it. I just don’t need animal products. But it seems like eating anything that was an animal or has an animal in it isn’t vegan
Fuck goose down
And I mean, where do we draw the line? There’s microscopic organisms that we kill all the time
Imo, don’t think about it too hard. I think it makes more sense to eat creatures based on a mix of survivorship curve and whether they are intelligent enough to need to be confined.
If you’re building infrastructure more to contain animals rather than keep other ones out, imo that’s the pivot point.
Idealized survivorship curves:
Type 1 and 2 are easy no’s. Type 3 is generally fine as long as its not like an adult turtle or octopus. Type 3 organisms are probably going to get eaten a lot and early in nature while its rare for the adults to get eaten.
This one doesn’t either, it’s just a ghost.
Eating ghosts is vegan
I’m a level five vegan. I don’t eat anything that Casts a shadow
They are most fruit require insect pollination, as long there is no forced labor or murder it’s still vegan
I agree with you, but this fruit has a literal animal inside of it
See my comment here https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/19570004
So vegans could eat unemployed animals that die of natural causes?
scavenging is considered yucky but I don’t see any reason to consider it unethical per se unless it disrupts other animals mourning rituals
Wait until you find out what fossil fuels are made of
Mostly plants and plankton?
Are zooplankton vegan?
Would this render figs off limits for vegans and vegetarians? 🤔
No because it’s entirely voluntary on the wasps part
But could the wasp ever really choose not to enter the fig?
It was made for me! This is my fig!
Maybe “voluntary” isn’t the best word in the “free will” sense, but it clearly requires no coercion
This post is informative, horrifying, and indeed very, very spoopy.
Its not 100% accurate. Some wasps get trapped, not all. And there exists a fig species that doesn’t need wasps
Damn, I hadn’t understood it as all figs needing wasps, but figured it was more the reverse of what you’re now saying where maybe some specific varieties had adapted to need them. I already was not a fan of figs, but this is definitely too spoopy for my tastes.
Yeah it changed my love of figs a bit. Fig Newtons…now with 25% less wasps.
They should have worked the wasp angle into their old “A cookie is just a cookie…” commercials. Kids already hated those things, this would have really made the brand stick heh
Can vegans eat figs?
Most vegans do. The general idea is to avoid exploiting animals, but the wasps are living out their natural life cycle. There are a small number of people who do worry about preventing wild insect suffering but they’re not concerned particularly with figs.
Vegans eat other foods that use fertilizer. Fertilizers could contain meat or meat byproducts… So…
Fertilizers could contain meat
Can you provide an example? Sounds strange. Too expensive.
cow is made of meat.
cow eats grass.
cow has a shit.
said shit is collected to form manure.
this manure is an animal byproduct which the animal did not consent to you taking.
Same as bees and honey.
Im not vegan but thats what a vegan explained to me
Consent is needed to pick up animal shit now??
Do we have any theories as to what the cows were going to do with it?
Ok, evil humans extort shit from the cows without their consent. I never thought that vegans are that crazy.
You want me to provide examples of fertilizer? Sorry I’m not into shitposting.
Get off the internet and get back to work, Dad.
2nd paragraph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertilizer
However, starting in the 19th century…
Hasn’t XIX century started in your region yet? :)
Vegans in your country don’t like organic food? Blood/bone meal is still a very popular fertlilizer.
I had a friend that didn’t eat figs for this reason.
not if they have trypophobia
yeah
Yeah sure I’ll eat figs. You don’t eat the fig wasps as they have been eaten by the fig already. If I knew there was a fig wasp still inside, I wouldn’t eat it though.
ffs they won’t eat honey, and that’s only because you’re stealing the fruits of the bees’ labor. I would assume the International Vegan Council outright bans figs with extreme prejudice.
they won’t eat honey, and that’s only because you’re stealing the fruits of the bees’ labor
Not the only reason. For example, an infamous and common practice in the honey industry is to cut off the queen’s wings, ensuring the hive has no choice but to stay there and produce honey.
I’ve never met a vegan who won’t eat figs; figs’ relationship with fig wasps is symbiotic, and yes, excluding fruit on the basis that “eating the fruit of a pollinated plant is exploiting the pollinator” probably far oversteps the “practicable” part of veganism:
Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.
Would you eat honey from a natural hive without these practices?
Good question. I wouldn’t (we’re assuming casual foraging for fun and not a survival situation); it’s still not vegan, but it’d be arguably less unethical on a spectrum.
A con compared to the apiary is that these wild bees aren’t being artificially supplemented by e.g. sugar water; it’s live-or-die for them, and that’s their food. It’s not in me to take that away from them when I don’t have to.
If someone took like a teaspoon of honey (still the lifetime output of about a dozen bees) while giving the bees something greater in return, then I don’t think most vegans would think it’s inherently wrong*, but like any ethical framework, whenever you try to find contrived boundaries, it’s kind of like “okay, but why?” It’s sometimes engaging on the armchair but rarely in practice.
A huge pro compared to the apiary is avoiding, in addition to the physical mistreatment of the bees themselves, the perpetuation of the exploitation. If you one-and-done plunder a hive, that’s not vegan, but you’re not giving money to someone as a way of telling them “thanks, and keep doing this”.
* I’m making a hand-wavey assumption here that you can just do that without pissing off and killing a bunch of bees or smoking them out just so we can have perfectly ideal ethical conditions.
This is more in the “dead worms in the compost make their way into the vegetables we eat” wheelhouse than in the “lets steal these animals labor for their young, risking death and injury to the workers while doing so” wheelhouse
BIG FIG WASP
Did your god know, insects grow, in my pome?
So that’s why god hates figs
This actually explains the infamous Fig Newton Debacle of ‘92, which my extended family is still divided over.
Haha yes… Die trash.
The only way to get food that doesn’t contain bugs and rat shit is to grow it indoors, in virtually hermetically sealed rooms.
Also, the more processed your food, the more material you don’t want it contains. Which is why I’m surprised that so many vegans are on the fake meat bandwagon. The fact that they eat so much processed food clearly shows the claim that they’re doing it for health is poorly thought out.
Which is why I’m surprised that so many vegans are on the fake meat bandwagon. The fact that they eat so much processed food clearly shows the claim that they’re doing it for health is poorly thought out.
This a fundamental misunderstanding of what veganism is, namely:
a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.
A plant-based diet for health is normally a “whole foods plant-based diet”, for which a mountain of well-studied health benefits exist. But vegans who eat plant-based for the animals can have any level of care about their own health that they want just like any omnivore can; that part is a spectrum.
