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How tiny wasps cope with being smaller than amoebas

Thrips are tiny insects, typically just a millimeter in length. Some are barely half that size. If that’s how big the adults are, imagine how small a thrips’ egg must be. Now, consider that there are insects that lay their eggs inside the egg of a thrips.

That’s one of them in the image above – the wasp, Megaphragma mymaripenne. It’s pictured next to a Paramecium and an amoeba at the same scale. Even though both these creatures are made up of a single cell, the wasp – complete with eyes, brain, wings, muscles, guts and genitals – is actually smaller. At just 200 micrometers (a fifth of a millimeter), this wasp is the third smallest insect alive* and a miracle of miniaturization.

The wasp has several adaptations for life at such a small scale. But the most impressive one of all has just been discovered by Alexey Polilov from Lomonosov Moscow State University, who has spent many years studying the world’s tiniest insects.

Read the full article here!

* The world’s second smallest insect is a close relative of M. mymaripenne called Megaphragma caribea, slightly smaller at 170 micrometers. The record holder is yet another wasp – Dicopomorpha echmepterygis. The males, blind and wingless, are just 130 micrometers long. The females are slightly bigger than M.caribea.