Insects · Hymenoptera · Agaonidae

Agaonid Wasp

Blastophaga psenes

Not Evaluated

It has not yet been assessed against the IUCN criteria. See full glossary

The fig wasp is an apocritan hymenopteran of the family Agaonidae. It is the only wasp species responsible for pollinating figs. Pollination is carried out by the females, which enter the syconium through a natural opening called the ostiole and lay their eggs inside it. As they move about they pollinate the flowers, and there they die. B. psenes specialises in one species of fig, the edible or cultivated fig Ficus carica, and also the related species Ficus palmata.

Size

15 cm – 25 cm

Lifespan

1 years

Diet

Herbivore

Feeds mainly on plants.

Social structure

Colony

Lives in large concentrations, often for breeding reasons.

Sighting difficulty

Unknown

Temperate forestHerbivore Colonial Insect Temperate forest

23countries 5parks

Fun facts

GeneralWithout it the wild fig cannot set fruit: the two cannot do without each other.
As she enters through the ostiole, an extremely narrow passage, the female loses her wings and often her antennae: it is a one-way journey from which she will never emerge.
The males are born blind and wingless, fertilise the females inside the fig and chew the tunnel through which the females will leave; then they die inside it.
Caprification, which means hanging wild figs full of wasps among cultivated fig trees, is a farming technique practised in the Mediterranean since antiquity.
It is the fig's only pollinator: without it there are no Smyrna figs, and the practice of hanging wild caprifigs among the cultivated trees, caprification, has been known since antiquity.
The adult female lives at most 48 hours outside the fig, and emerges with her eggs already mature.
The males never leave: they are born, fertilise the females inside the syconium and die there.
In the fig, which is dioecious, the wasp can only breed in the flowers of male trees: pollinating a female tree costs its offspring their lives, and yet the offset flowering prevents selection from leading it to avoid them.