Insect Wars, Washington D.C., DC (2025)

09/05/2025

Chase to Hornets’ Lair

09/05/2025

Carnivorous Katydid vs Praying Mantis

09/05/2025

The mosquito lands, feeding in silence
But this bite carries a hidden passenger

On its abdomen cling the eggs of a botfly
Laid there by a predator that never touches the host itself

The warmth of blood triggers them to hatch
Larvae drop into the wound
Hooked spines drive them deeper
They anchor in living flesh

For days they feed unseen
Drinking blood
Tearing tissue
Breathing through a small hole that puckers at the surface

The host feels pressure, swelling, movement
Each larva writhing beneath the skin
Growing fat and armored inside its living shelter

Weeks later, the parasite forces its way out
Bursting from the flesh
Wet, spined, alive
It drops to the soil to pupate into an adult fly

This is Dermatobia hominis
The human botfly
The only known parasite to replace safety with horror under the skin

Its strategy is precise
It hijacks mosquitoes, ticks, or flies as couriers
Turning them into vectors for its offspring
So every bite can become an invasion

In the insect wars, violence is not always sudden
Sometimes it waits in silence beneath the skin
Growing stronger until the body can no longer hold it in

—

Learn more:
• Guimarães JH & Papavero N (1999), Biology of the Human Botfly
• Baird R (2016), Myiasis in mammals
• Cogley TP (1991), Parasitism and development of botflies

09/05/2025

The soil shakes with a sudden blast
A termite soldier ruptures, blue toxin spraying into its enemies
Ants stagger, glued and burned in the chemical flood

This is Neocapritermes taracua
The exploding termite of French Guiana

Old soldiers carry crystalline sacs on their backs
Blue reservoirs packed with chemicals
When the colony is attacked, they charge forward
Their bodies swell, split, and detonate

The crystals mix with saliva to form a sticky, corrosive fluid
A flood strong enough to kill ants and rival termites in seconds
The soldier dies instantly
But its sacrifice halts the invasion

Age fuels the weapon
The older the termite, the larger the crystals
The more violent the explosion
Time itself turns their bodies into bombs

Younger workers fight with jaws
Older soldiers fight with death
Each detonation a warning to enemies
Each sacrifice the cost of survival

Exploding termites are rare
Neocapritermes taracua is one of the few recorded species
Only described in detail in 2012
Proof that even now, insect warfare hides strategies beyond imagination

In the wars of insects
Some fight with venom
Some with steel jaws
These fight with their lives
Their bodies becoming the blast that saves the colony

—

Learn more:
• Šobotník J et al. (2012), Explosive defensive behavior in Neocapritermes
• Costa-Leonardo AM (2006), Chemical defenses in termites
• Prestwich GD (1984), Defensive secretions in social insects

09/05/2025

The ant marches forward
But its skull is already claimed
A larva feeds inside, turning nerves into pulp, brain into fuel

This is the ant-decapitating fly
A parasite forged in shadows

The female dives from above
Injects an egg in a split-second strike
The victim staggers, then carries on
Alive, unaware, carrying death within

Inside, the larva tunnels to the head
Chews through tissue, drinks the brain
The ant keeps working, a hollow servant in the colony’s ranks

Then the moment comes
The muscles collapse
The head falls free from the body
A skull rolling across the trail

Sealed inside is the larva
Protected, waiting
Until it bursts forth as a new fly
Ready to strike again

Each colony marked by headless bodies
Each skull a cradle for the next wave of killers

In the insect wars, death doesn’t wait for the battlefield
It grows inside you
And claims your head as its banner

—

Learn more:
• Porter SD et al. (1995), Host specificity of ant-decapitating flies
• Feener DH (2000), Parasitoids and regulation of ant populations
• Disney RHL (1994), Biology of Phorid flies

09/05/2025

The emerald jewel wasp is no hunter
It is a surgeon of fear

It stabs once to stun
Then drives its stinger into the brain
Injecting venom that erases free will
The roach can move, but never resist
A slave locked inside its own shell

The wasp drags it by the antenna
Leads it into a grave prepared in advance
An egg is laid
The chamber sealed
The prisoner waiting for ex*****on

Days pass in silence
The larva hatches
It feeds carefully
Muscle first
Organs later
The heart kept beating until the last bite

What remains is a husk
A body emptied by precision
A life reduced to a cradle of death

In the wars of insects
this is not predation
It is control
It is parasitism at its most violent
It is METAL carved into biology

—

Learn more:
• Libersat F et al. (2009), Neuroparasitology of the Jewel Wasp
• Gal R & Libersat F (2008), Venom-induced manipulation of cockroach behavior
• Haspel G et al. (2003), Free will suppressed: Jewel Wasp stings

09/05/2025

The wasp looks normal
Its wings steady
Its movements sharp
But inside its abdomen, another life has been growing

This is Strepsiptera
The twisted-wing parasite

Its story begins when a larva, smaller than a grain of dust, climbs onto a host
It slips between the plates of the exoskeleton
And vanishes into the body

There it feeds in silence
Tapping into blood and fat
Redirecting hormones so the host continues to walk and fly
All while being drained from within

Females remain locked inside for life
Their swollen bodies fused into the host’s abdomen
Only a small opening connects them to the outside world
Through it, they release pheromones that lure males

The males are short-lived
Born with wings and branched eyes
They survive only a few hours
Just long enough to find a female hidden inside her living shell
Mating takes place without the female ever leaving her host

When her brood is ready, the larvae erupt outward
Thousands at once
Each one searching for a new victim
The host collapses, spent and hollow
A body used as both prison and womb

More than 600 species of these parasites are known
Found across the world
Each tied to a particular host
Wasps, bees, crickets, leafhoppers — none are safe

To watch one emerge is to see control made absolute
The host’s life prolonged only to serve the parasite inside it
A reminder that in the wars of insects
Survival can mean surrendering your body to something else

—

Learn more:
• Kathirithamby J (2009), Review of Strepsiptera biology
• Pohl H & Beutel RG (2005), Morphology and evolution of twisted-wing parasites
• Hughes DP et al. (2012), Host manipulation by parasites

09/04/2025

The sand collapses in an instant
The ant scrambles, legs sliding, grains cascading beneath it
At the bottom, a pair of jaws waits in silence

This is the antlion larva
An insect that builds death traps in miniature deserts

It begins with a spiral
Digging backward, flinging sand outward with precise sweeps of its head
Until a perfect cone forms — steep, smooth, unstable
A structure designed to betray every step

The larva buries itself at the base
Only its mandibles exposed
Sickle-shaped, sharpened for piercing and draining

When an ant wanders across the rim
the slope gives way under its weight
Sand slides downward in waves
Each movement pulling the victim deeper
Each attempt to escape collapsing the slope further

The antlion helps the fall along
Flicking sand upward to dislodge any grip
Until gravity finishes what the predator began

At the bottom, the jaws snap shut
Venom and enzymes flow in
The prey’s tissues dissolve into liquid
Sucked dry through hollow fangs
The husk cast aside to clear the trap for the next

This strategy has not changed in over 100 million years
Fossil pits identical to modern ones prove its ancient perfection
A method so effective it never needed to evolve again

In the wars of insects, weapons can be teeth, venom, or deception
Here, the weapon is gravity itself
And gravity never loses

—

Learn more:
• Heinrich B & Heinrich M (1984), The Pit-Trapping Strategy of Antlion Larvae
• Mansell MW (1999), Evolution and Ecology of Antlions
• Grimaldi D & Engel MS (2005), Evolution of the Insects

09/04/2025

Ants vs Roach

09/04/2025

The forest floor is alive with movement
Columns of ants run between fallen leaves
But hidden among the workers are soldiers built for a single purpose
To die when the colony is threatened

These are the exploding ants of Borneo
Colobopsis explodens

When predators breach their lines, the soldiers fight not with mandibles or stingers
But by rupturing their own bodies
Their abdomens burst open, releasing a bright yellow fluid
Sticky, toxic, and impossible to ignore

The substance glues attackers in place
Burns with corrosive chemicals
And fills the air with scents that summon reinforcements
The invader is stopped
Even if the soldier is gone

Researchers call them “kamikaze ants”
Each one a living bomb
Ready to end itself for the survival of the colony

The strategy works against spiders, centipedes, and rival ants
Any creature unlucky enough to bite down is met with a sudden flood of poison
Some attackers drown in it
Others flee covered in glue that hardens like resin

Exploding ants are part of a group of over a dozen related species across Southeast Asia
But C. explodens was only formally described in 2018
A reminder that even in one of the world’s most studied ecosystems, new weapons are still being discovered

In the wars of insects, survival is not always about the individual
Sometimes it is about the sacrifice of one for the thousands it protects

—

Learn more:
• Laciny A et al. (2018), Colobopsis explodens sp. n.: exploding ants in Borneo
• Maschwitz U & Maschwitz E (1974), Studies on ant self-sacrifice behavior
• Davidson DW & McKey D (1993), Ant–plant defense strategies

09/04/2025

Praying Mantis vs Carnivorous Katydid

Insect Wars

09/05/2025

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