Why figs are gross

Even when figs are grown the old-fashioned way, with wasps, the wasp is long gone by the time the fig crosses your lips. Ficin is so effective at breaking down, or digesting, animal proteins that natives of Central America eat fig sap to treat intestinal worm infections. So, no, those fig-filled cookies you bought at the store are not full of dead wasps.

Dani Moore. Figs Without Wasps?. Scientists, teachers, writers, illustrators, and translators are all important to the program. If you are interested in helping with the website we have a Volunteers page to get the process started. Digging Deeper. Digging Deeper: Depression and the Past. Digging Deeper: Germs and Disease. Digging Deeper: Milk and Immunity. How did the wasps get in there? And why, if this knowledge exists, are figgy baked goods still flying off store shelves?

The bizarre truth has to do with reproduction. The whole fig-wasp relationship boils down to the fact that neither of them are very efficient reproducers; they just found an unusual way to help each other.

Unfortunately for the wasp, the journey into the fig is a one-way trip. As mentioned, these wasps are inefficient reproducers. They need a very specific environment in which to grow and feed their larvae. It just so happens the inside of the fig is the perfect wasp nursery. So, the female wasp will travel into the fig through a tiny passage known as the ostiole.

In turn, that wasp, which lives for a mere two days in its mature state, feeds on figs and only figs as a larva before returning to the tree to lay its eggs. Ever since, the fig tree and the fig wasp have been inextricably intertwined.

Symbiotic partnerships are common in nature. Cows, for example, house hordes of healthy bacteria in their intestines that help them to digest the cellulose in grass, while the bacteria gain a life-long supply of nutrients. The relationships between most plants and pollinators, in fact, are considered mutualistic; the plants provide nectar to various animals, and the animals, in turn, facilitate the spread of pollen for reproduction.

But fig trees and wasps are more than mutually benefitting partners. By eliminating all other sources of pollinators and egg-laying refuge respectively, the organisms have co-evolved, proliferating in near perfect symmetry: Both have produced some odd species across the world, each more or less uniquely tied to one another.