This may be very amusing for most people. Wasp pierces tough skin of unripe figs with 'Drill Bit'
How does female parasitic fig wasp lays her egg? For long biologists have been trying to unravel this mystery until the surfacing of a new study that tells us how easy or arduous the whole process is. It is understood that during the egg laying process the wasp has to pierce the tough skin of unripe figs.
Researchers delved deep into to find out how does wasp manages all these. During their study they found that wasp is naturally equipped with a built-in power tool that helps her to penetrate into fruit.
Study leader Namrata Gundiah, a mechanical engineer at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, (Watch a video of a parasitic wasp at work) said: "If you look at this structure, it's so beautiful in the sense that it's hard but manoeuvrable, which is a tough challenge for a drilling tool. These kinds of structures seem to bore so efficiently—that's what is really amazing about this system."
Wasp drills into the fruit with the help of appendage that's thinner than a human hair. Moreover, it is tipped with zinc.
Confirming this, researchers said that latest technologies like electron microscope and an x-ray detector came handy to them to observe the small things. "We see it very consistently only at the tip and not anywhere else."
via Science - Google News http://ift.tt/RLhBex
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