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 ...

The fig, a sweet and nutritious fruit enjoyed by millions, shares an extraordinary, symbiotic relationship with a tiny, often ...

The life of the fig wasp is nature at its worst—from our human perspective, anyway. In order to lay their eggs, female fig wasps have to squeeze into the flowering body of a fig, losing their wings ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Figs and fig wasps have evolved to help each other out: Fig wasps lay their eggs inside the fruit where the wasp larvae can safely develop, and in return, the wasps pollinate the figs.

University of Maryland Biology Professor Carlos Machado studies the extraordinary partnership between figs and their tiny pollinators—and what happens when some evolutionary partners turn into ...

If you don’t believe in soulmates, then the closest thing is the scientific notion of codependent evolution. (Very different from plain ol’ codependency.) This evolutionary kismet takes millions of ...

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." You’ve probably heard rumors about figs being filled with dead wasps. That's only sort of true. It is ...

Removal of an offender's hand, tongue or ear: punishments described in Babylon's Hammurabi Code, depended on the nature of the crime. Published in 1771 B.C., the code set the first formal standards ...

Researchers have been studying the effect of rising temperatures on the lifespan of pollinating fig wasps. The findings show that the wasps lived much shorter lives at high temperatures, which would ...

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts. The Moreton Bay Fig is famous for its size and notorious for its ...