Those white things are wasp larvae eating this manduca caterpillar from the inside out.

Parasitic wasps lay their eggs in it. The eggs are coated with a virus that temporarily turns off the manduca's immune system. When it's immune system reboots, it is tricked into thinking that the eggs are part of the caterpillar. The eggs hatch, and they eat their way out and turn into pupae and the cycle repeats.

That virus sounds useful for transplant patients 🤔

AAAAAAAHHHHhHHHHhhHhHhHh.

That is all.

fuck wasps

Depends if the organs pop out after reboot or not...

Imagine getting a kidney transplant and it eats its way out of you and turns into a giant wasp.

You see this - are you tempted to pick them off?

This sounds like rule 34.

Thanks I hate it

Season 2 of scavengers reign please

Anyone who has grown tomatoes before really appreciates the wasps. The hornworm caterpillar can devastate your tomatoes crop. It's probably a terrible way to go for the caterpillar, but they are real pests.

You have to press F8 to reboot your immune system into safe mode

sad sigh

Surely some furry artist did this already. Most likely with fascinating bodily proportions.

The little bitty wasps that parasitize the oleander aphids on my milkweed are some of my best buddies.

If only

The wasps are fine until you unwittingly jam a weed puller into their ground nest. They don't like when you do that.

Every one of those pupae will hatch a wasp that will go protect another one of your tomato plants.

That's metal af, tbh.