The emerald cockroach wasp. Ampulex compressa. Of the family Ampulicidae.

She is beautifully iridescent, covered in blue-green metallic carapace like oil slick with two pairs of hidden crimson legs.

She is a parasitoid.

In order to reproduce, the emerald cockroach wasp must first find a cockroach. She will then sting it twice. The first sting delivers a mild venom which leaves the roach temporarily paralyzed. This allows her to take her time with the second, more precise strike into his brain.

She injects a venom that blocks octopamine receptors, and the cockroach becomes sluggish and no longer fights her control. She will rip apart his antennae and use the tattered leash remains to guide the prisoner back to her burrow.

Once inside the burrow, she will lay her egg on the roach’s abdomen, exit the burrow, and collapse the entrance.

Once her egg hatches, the larval wasp feeds on the external parts of the cockroach for several days before finally eating into his insides. The larva will consume his internal organs in a week’s time, then form a cocoon inside his corpse.

The adult wasp eventually emerges, beautiful and iridescent and venomous.

She will live several months. She can mate quick. She only needs to mate once to produce enough eggs for several dozen cockroach sarcophagi.

What strikes me as sad is that if we can assume that the cockroach has a soul, that he has consciousness, then he is aware of it all. Yet without physical motor control, he is helpless to stop it all. He knows he is dead by the first sting. He will walk freely into his grave, watch as the gravedigger shovels in the dirt, and wait for the remnant of the wasp to eat his insides, all while the active mind behind the helpless body watches.

Food for thought.