EWW! Will you still eat figs after seeing this video?
When you say summer, you say sweet, juicy figs. In your salad, with bacon, in a tart, or straight out of the hand. But those crunchy bits, are they just the seeds or something else too?
Believe it or not, there’s a good chance that a dead wasp (!) is living inside your fig. Including her babies. Yes, ladies and gentlemen. I don’t particularly enjoy being the messenger bringing you this news either, but it is what it is.
Here’s how it works: some types of figs are male or female and therefore need a special type of wasp to pollinate the female figs so they can reproduce.
Larvae
The female wasp crawls into the fig through the bottom, but that opening is so narrow that she loses her wings and gets stuck inside the fig. If it’s a male fig, she lays her eggs there. Those eggs hatch into larvae, which burrow their way out of the fig, grow into wasps and fly away carrying the fig pollen.
But if the female wasp crawls into a female fig, she does pollinate it but cannot lay her eggs and simply dies.
Crunchy
Still, you don’t have to be afraid of those crunchy bits. They really are just the seeds. Figs produce a certain enzyme that completely digests the wasp.
On the other hand, this woman’s video shows that you can indeed find live larvae in your fig. Dealbreaker? Well, you could also see it as a protein-rich surprise from Mother Nature.
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