If you like figs, you might have heard some disturbing tradition about them: that every fig conceals a wasp, since these pests require to crawl within and pass away in order for the fruit to grow. Are there truly wasps in the figs we consume, or is this simply a misconception?

The response is someplace in between. Wasps do play an important function in the life process of numerous kinds of fig trees, however many figs from

the grocery store are most likely bug-free.

“Fig trees and fig wasps are a great example of a mutualism,” Charlotte Jandéra plant ecology and advancement scientist at Uppsala University in Sweden, informed Live Science in an e-mail.

“Other examples of mutualisms include trees and the mycorrhizal fungi that help the trees take up nutrients, animals and their gut microbes, and flowering plants and pollinators in general.”

When it comes to figs and fig wasps, the fruit gets pollinated and the wasp has the ability to recreate, causing a mutualism. This relationship is rather complicated.

What we consider the fig “fruit” is in fact a hollow structure called a syconium filled with small flowers. Usually, when a female fig wasp crawls inside a synconium from a female fig tree, she spreads out pollen, which the plant requires in order to produce seeds and ripen. The hole that the wasp crawls in is extremely little, and she might lose her wings and antenna while doing so and can even pass away inside the fig.

It’s possible that some types of figs might have dead fig wasps inside them.

That does not always indicate the figs we consume have wasps inside. Not all kinds of figs need pollination in order to ripen. People consume the fig types Ficus carica, which has a number of cultivars that are parthenocarpic, implying they can produce ripe fruit without pollination– and for that reason, without fig wasps.

“Most figs we eat in the US have no wasps inside them,” Carlos Machadoa biology teacher at the University of Maryland, informed Live Science in an e-mail.

A female wasp going into a fig.

Fig wasps can’t sting people, and they’re much smaller sized than the wasps that do.

(Image credit: Danita Delimont through Alamy)Objective figs and Brown Turkey figs are 2 commonly-sold fig cultivars that do not need wasp pollination to ripen and produce seeds, Jandér stated. This does not use to all figs that people consume, though; Smyrna figs, Calimyrna figs, and wild figs around the Mediterranean all count on wasps for pollination.

“Most wild figs do require pollination to produce ripe fruit,” Machado discussed. That indicates these kinds of figs might have a small wasp inside them– however it’s still not a warranty.

Related: How do plants with seedless fruit replicate?

Even if a wasp was when in the fig, does not imply it’s still in there by the time the fig is consumed. The synconia of Ficus carcia have a big adequate opening that the fig wasp is in some cases able to leave the structure after getting in. If the wasp does pass away within, her body normally gets crushed and disintegrates from the procedure of the fig developing, Jandér stated.

“Even if there were remnants of the original pollinator there you probably would not see them,” Jandér described. Any crispy texture is most likely from the plant’s seeds, not wasp stays.

The fig wasp life processWasps in some cases pass away inside figs, these fruits are in fact an important part of their recreation cycle. Simply as a lot of kinds of figs require wasp pollination to make brand-new fruit, fig wasps could not replicate without the aid of fig trees.

When a female wasp crawls into a fig syconium from a female tree– the kind of figs we consume– she just pollinates it, since the flowers within are too wish for her to lay her eggs on. If she endeavors into a synconium from a male tree– which are called caprifigs and normally not consumed by human beings– she’ll begin to lay her eggs

There, the eggs hatch and establish from larvae into young wasps, which mate while still inside the fruit. Typically, the male wasps pass away inside the caprifig after breeding, though they do assist chew a tunnel that permits the female wasps to leave, in some cases even providing themselves as bait for the predatory ants that might be waiting outdoors. Ultimately, the fertilized female wasps break out looking for a brand-new fig to lay their eggs in, bring pollen from the old caprifig with them.

There are over 850 types of fig treesand every one can just be pollinated by a particular types of fig wasp, Jandér stated. The relationship in between these plants and animals developed countless years earlier, and both Machado and Jandér indicated its significance. As a keystone types– an organism that numerous other plants or animals in the community count on to endure– fig trees and their relationship with wasps continue to be of fantastic interest to scientists.

“There are other plant-pollinator mutualisms in nature, but the fig-fig wasp mutualism is possibly the most diverse and most consequential of all,” Machado stated.