The Biology of Fairyflies

[@aick]

Ever since I learned about fairyflies I keep my eye out for them. This morning there were some out by my front yard junipers!

[@CallMeMimi27]

me too! unfortunately they don't leave in my area! but I'll keep my eyes open!

[@bugjams]

Another small comment: it's technically incorrect to call these wasps "parasites," parasite refers to a feeding style (ie. ticks, mosquitoes). The correct term is "parasitoid," which is a method of reproduction.

[@animalanalytics]

True!

[@YunxiaoChu]

Actually mosquitos are micropredators

[@darcieclements4880]

​@@YunxiaoChuthey're still parasites because they feed off of a host. Just because they don't live on the host doesn't mean they don't still feed off of a host without actually killing it. However the larval form and the males have other feeding strategies and the females only parasitized directly before laying eggs so that means their formal feeding group is more complicated. But the behavior itself is parasitism.

[@emergencyfood3568]

@@animalanalytics Bugjams is correct. Another distinction between the two is that parasitoids kill their hosts, parasites do not.

[@zcarp8642]

​@YunxiaoChu As they said, micropredation is still a form of parasitism, a louse is still a parasite, a tick is, a flea is. All of which are forms of micropredation

[@bugjams]

The way I interpret the name "fairyfly" is that it's just how we commonly name lots of insects. The suffix "-fly" doesn't necessarily indicate being Dipteran, but simply means they fly. For example; Butterflies, mayflies, fireflies, just to name a few.

[@Netheferious]

The issue with this is that with Bat Flies, a type of Dipteran, many spicies lack wings and cannot fly.

[@Abigail-hu5wf]

Bat flies are true flies though, I believe, so they inherit the name that way. There's basically two ways one can get a name: inheritance, or shared characteristics.

[@BuckTrible]

You can actually tell from the spelling! In Entomology, a few common insect groups have common names that are used as proper nouns for a particular order, such as fly (Diptera), bug (Hemiptera), and wasp (Hymenoptera). But these words only act as a proper nouns when used as a separate word; when they’re appended to the word they are used as an adjective and actually indicate that the organism is not a member of the group. So by spelling you can be sure that fruit fly or house fly is from Diptera, but fairyfly or mayfly are not. This also happens for bugs and wasps: water bug is from Hemiptera, mealybug is not; etc. you’ll sometimes find misspellings and exceptions, but this convention almost always holds and is nice to know =).

[@PostModernAlchemist]

I randomly encountered this video while studying and i am happy i did! What an awesome breakdown and explanation!

[@darcieclements4880]

As a child I called them improbably tiny wasps and tried to explain to my parents that they were so small they were barely visible. My parents were convinced I was making them up because a lot of people don't have vision that allows them to see them after a certain age. I could also see rotifer's well into my twenties and I haven't checked since to see if I still can. When we're talking small here, we are talking absurdly small to the point where you almost see an echo of the shape rather than the distinctive animal though when I was little I could see everything in detail. One of the benefits of being nearsighted I guess.

[@emiwoo9355]

A real Horton Hears a Who

[@YunxiaoChu]

Hmm…

[@retrocasualscpf6]

Lmao... people tell themselves the strangest bs

[@zcarp8642]

I, too was able to see rotifers fairly recently, haven't checked in a while as it's been a while since I've used my microscope! I could see them swimming about in the sample of water, like little tiny swimming specks of dust

[@frogglen6350]

thanks for crediting your images and research that you used. I hope you get more views

[@matttryc1907]

These little guys are some of the most interesting species I’ve ever found. I’ve only seen them a few times while processing some samples under a dissecting microscope

[@lilitheden748]

Very interesting. I wasn’t aware of there being these ultra small wasps. Life is amazing. The person that found the first super small wasp must have been blown away. As am I. Fascinating. A great topic 👍🏻

[@darcieclements4880]

I found them when I was really young and no one would believe me😅

[@iTrapa]

The fact that such an advanced type of insect evolved to be so small, to the point where their entire flight mechanic changes feels so crazy

[@dracodracarys2339]

It's wacky how an insect, made up of many cells and with eyes, brains, guts and all, can be smaller than a unicellular protist.

[@myrmepropagandist]

Love to see a video on these wonderful little wasps!

[@HuckleberryHim]

I will be annoying and correct your spelling of Symphyta. But awesome video about a criminally underrated group of animals. The wasps in general in all their obscure diversity are so cool, and the fairyflies are magically tiny with such bizarre and alien life cycles, even by wasp standards. I have seen many aculeatans but only a few non-aculeatan apocritans, mostly ichneumonoids. I have seen one chalcidoid wasp though, but probably not a fairyfly. It was among the smallest animals I've ever seen! Barely a few mm

[@xidyl200]

BUGS!! I got so excited when I saw you upload this, and finally got around to watching it now. So fascinating! One can always rely on you to provide insight on a wonderful, yet less talked about group of animals. The fairy flies are so cute too!

[@smallmoth]

thank you for making this video!! it's so cool how life histories can vary so much just within a family

[@mrmosty5167]

Very cool group of insects. Never seen a fairyfly but when I was collecting back in the early 2000s I encountered quite a few species of Chalcedoidea of at least 9 families

[@mel_163]

Big-O!

[@OrionJLRolen]

I had one land on my hand recently I think, it was almost invisible and definitely had wasp characteristics (from what I could see). We have a fig tree, maybe it was a fig wasp!

[@JoaoLopes-gs5sd]

amazing video! keep up the good work my friend, cheers!

[@greeenjeeens]

Nicely done. I basically watched this to see how you made the tree, I wouldn't be surprised if something in the changed while you were making the video 😅 Anway, nice job, and the more people hear about Hymenoptera the better 😊

[@mattheide2775]

Thank you for the video❤ It answered many of my questions about wasps. I had no idea that they could be herbivores 😊

[@Sturdy_Penguin]

The life cycle of these are usually utterly horrifying, but they get my approval since I started gardening. Once you start eating my tomato plants, then being eaten alive from the inside gets my approval. I'm just glad that there aren't any around adapted to work on humans... That we know of.

[@JarMaster]

Great essay!

[@thecianinator]

splurge on a good microphone and learn how to use it properly. you deserve it. Your content deserves it.

[@animalanalytics]

Thanks, just got a new mic, so hope it helps future vids.

[@AverageSsb2Player]

Fact of the day: The largest mososaurs reached just 18 meters, one of the largest was Prognathodon Saturi, i couldnt find any weight estimates on this species, and they hunted in deep waters.

[@i.luv.slugs420]

Is there any information on how often Fairy"flies" flap their wings? Given the "viscosity" of the air that fairyflies experience, do they also fall slower when not flapping? I imagine it would be difficult to keep up the same wingbeat rate that larger wasps do, although maybe the wing bristles reduce drag allowing for easier flapping?

[@elaimaro122]

Your channel is a godsend and I *LOVE* your thorough breakdowns! My interest in entomology is primarily art driven, and you just cover way more ground than anyone else I've seen on this platform abt the subjects of the video's ✨ Would be cool if you're ever up to making something about velvet worms or caecilians ^^

[@FusionDeveloper]

Hooray for flies.

[@camgrl69]

Love learning abt loving insect families while eating breakfast thx for posting 💯🙏🏾

[@tygical]

i was also eating breakfast while watching this lol

[@machiavelZongo]

i loved this video.

[@shaddonon]

Fascinating vid 🙏 how do species like similis avoid inbreeding when their life strategy centers on 1 male + 1 female? mix with parthenogenesis and other strategies maybe?

[@animalanalytics]

Honestly, I tried to find this out for the vid, but came up with no answer. They must have some way to do it though.

[@yasminenaia2497]

They may not avoid it deliberately! Inbreeding depression isn't as prominent in some species than in others. I know in certain colony mammals even (certain rodents) inbreeding depression isn't seen with less than 20 consecutive generations of sibling pairs. It may be that insects with breeding strategies like this simply just very much lean into inbreeding and have methods of retaining diversity in some way or another

[@TheAnticlinton]

How do fairyflies deal with inbreeding if the hatched larvae only have opportunities to mate with their siblings?

[@jesusramirezromo2037]

Inbreeding isn't much of an issue for insects, It's what most bees do

[@gildedbear5355]

Hymenoptera use, as a rule, haplodiploidy sex determination. That means the females have two sets of chromosomes (like we do) while the males only have one (like our sperm or eggs). This has some weird effects. One effect is that females are more closely related to their sisters than they world be to their own daughters and so eusociality is encouraged and developed multiple times in the form of bees and ants. Another effect (and the answer to your question) is that they are much less prone to the negative results of inbreeding because any negative traits WILL be expressed in the males (since they only have one copy of the gene to use) and anything that could hinder their ability to live or reproduce WILL actually hinder them.

[@darcieclements4880]

In the grand scheme of things very few things that are alive actually have issues with inbreeding. There's some very specific conditions that need to occur in order for it to become a bad thing and humans are terrible at understanding this because our reference point is our own species which is heavily dependent on outbreeding because that's what we've been doing for so long. I could probably give lectures spanning two years worth of content on how and why this works and all of the math that drives it. Anyhow long story short The only actual vulnerability from inbreeding on a fundamental level is susceptibility to disease but if you are isolated enough from other members of your species then this stops being a serious concern. All other problems with inbreeding are caused by the combination of inbreeding with additional factors.

[@TheAnticlinton]

@@darcieclements4880 That makes sense. I heard of a case of only one or 2 mating pairs of a galapagos finch species ending up on an isolated island, and they inbred between themselves enough for the finch population to rise to at least a hundred, with stable physiology, and thus the most recent finch species appeared. I read that grasshoppers tho, tend to use breed to discern relatedness, and female crickets tend to avoid mating with sibling males.

[@robinredbeard]

So cool! Thank you!

[@nathangamble125]

Apparently kids who play Call of Duty really like fairy flies. One told me he got 2 Dicomorpha last night. Or at least that's what I think he said.

[@volcano.mitchell]

ants, bees? Oops all wasps!

[@chrisrus1965]

Inviromintal prisure

[@nathanaelcard]

Fireflies, their larvae, and other bioluminescence in bugs

[@Sepi-chu_loves_moths]

is smol

[@gray5105]

proof i’ll watch anything

[@rubinolas6998]

Imagine only having a day of life and your only mission is to bang

[@gshaindrich]

10:40 looks like an aphid

[@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana]

I like to think the reason the fairyflies don't just reproduce asexually is that having 2 souls (technically 4, because the Unconscious and Conscious have separate souls) as parents is good, even without genetic diversity. It means more animating power to summon the souls of the children. Plus, the males ♂ are likely adapted to devote more of their animating power towards summoning and storing souls for the next generation.

[@Bear-id6nu]

🤔Uhhhhhh okay then

[@John_the_Paul]

Wouldn’t it be more accurate to call hyperparasitoids metaparasitoids instead?

[@evelynlamoy8483]

hearing people with English accents say "biological control" scares me on a visceral level.

[@theotheobald9666]

This guy is South African?

[@suzyqilplants]

I thought New Zealand. Either way, there is nothing English about his accent.

[@animalanalytics]

New Zealand, not English. The English certainly tried enough biological control introductions over here that I know what you mean, though!

[@heartwellroots5365]

Big fig wasp

[@mondo_stunts27]

What do you mean they use them in Israel? Did you think that’s a place with a lot of farms? You can walk across east to west in a day..

[@michalzielinski7504]

“ In 2023, Israel produced 61,000 metric tons of dates. Israel is responsible for about half of the world's Medjool dates, which are known for their smooth texture, good size, and lack of skin separation.”

[@darcieclements4880]

Um, yes, yes It does have a surprising amount of agriculture.

[@Bear-id6nu]

Yeah bc it stole all of Palestines arable land

[@rebellion795]

If fairy flys are wasps and yellowjackets are wasps then ANTS AND BEES HAVE TO BE WASPS TOO.

[@animalanalytics]

Absolutely correct!

[@darcieclements4880]

And this is why one should not conflate cladistics with common vernacular use to identify things that appear similar. Both are completely valid, they can exist at the same time and not interfere with each other.

[@rebellion795]

Only the monophylogeny is valid my brother fish. Otherwise you stsrt getting absurdities like: ' killer whales are dolphins not whales' Or someone dumb will say 'they arent monkey they are apes' Which is adjacent to ' we didnt descend from monkeys!, god made us in his image' Or some dumb naturalist will say something like ' these crocodile are the closest thing we have to living dinosaurs!' While ignoring the BIRDS hopping around

[@rebellion795]

@@animalanalytics the only question is are sawflys wasps? But if not they at least are all Hymen wings. lol

[@volcano.mitchell]

Oops all wasps!​@@animalanalytics

[@MermaidMakes]

I studied zoology and had never heard of the term “wastebasket taxon “ until just now!! I specifically studied herpetology so I imagine it’s much more common and useful in entomology for grouping unclassifiable insects until the research comes out. There are just so many insect species that I can see the necessity of using wastebasket groups! That’s why I still keep up and watch zoology videos even though I no longer practice in the field…there’s always something to learn, and things are always changing! Thank you for the great video! If KZbin had more channels like yours, without all the bells and whistles and sponsors, I’d actually enjoy it here like I did in the old days 🥲

[@AnnoyingNewsletters]

A lot of that content moved over to *_Nebula._*

[@animalanalytics]

It's a relic from when everything was determined by morphology. If you're familiar with herpetology, then the colubrid snakes is one example in reptiles. A lot of work has gone in to untangling that family!

[@MermaidMakes]

@@animalanalytics I’ve been trying to keep up with the colubrid reclassification! Things really started to get interesting when genome testing was made widely available. My strength was never taxonomy, I studied invasives and their behavior in Florida. I’ve just never heard the term wastebasket taxon used, or if I did it was so long ago. It’s been 15 years since I have been actively studying, but always love to learn (or relearn) more in my spare time!

[@MermaidMakes]

@@AnnoyingNewsletters do you use nebula? do you like it? I’ve been considering joining but I haven’t been able to ask anyone who actually uses it yet.

[@gildedbear5355]

I've used nebula. It's kind of nice to know that you are directly supporting the channels that you watch. However, I find its lack of algorithm to be a downside. If you want to find /new/ channels to watch on nebula you're going to have to research. Example: I found this video because of KZbin's algorithm, I would never gone searching for it, even though I find fairy flies to be fascination.

[@I_leave_mean_comments]

You need a new mic.