If you love figs, you may have heard some unsettling lore about them: that every fig hides a wasp, because these insects need to crawl inside and die in order for the fruit to grow. But are there ...

It takes a special kind of insect to pollinate an inside-out flower, which is exactly what the wasps that pollinate figs do. Crawling inside the firm swelling lined with microscopic flowers that will ...

A Brazilian researcher describes 129 species of fig tree parasites which compete and even prey upon the fig wasps during the many phases of the fig-wasp mutualism that helped to shape both plant and ...

Figs and wasps share a unique mutualistic relationship, where wasps pollinate figs while laying their eggs inside the fruit. Ficin, an enzyme in figs, breaks down wasp bodies if they die inside, ...

The larvae of pollinating wasps in the inner flowers of figs are safe from parasitic wasps. Parasites may contribute to stability in the fig-pollinator mutualism because outer flowers avoided by ...

Figs are a luscious fruit grown commercially mostly in Central and Southern California. The plant has an unusual reproductive system. The flower grows inside the wide end of the fruit, providing a ...