The Garuda Wasp

By: Cow Flipper

It looks like something you'd see in a 1950's science fiction movie like "IT CAME FROM THE DESERT". This giant pitch black insect is the stuff we'd rather not think about when we look at insects. The males of the species have such large jaws that it is hard to see how the creatures can even move.

The insect has been in a museum since the expidition it was discovered on went to Indonesia in the 1930s. On the island Sulawesi in the Mekongga Mountains, Kimsey Lynn of (UC Davis) an entomologist and Michael Ohl (Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin) discovered the species some 80 years after it was first collected.

Lynn named the wasp "Garuda" which is the national symbol of Indonesia. Called the King of Birds the symbol is of a part human, part eagle being. This species of wasp (Megalara)is a type of digger wasp. Digger wasp females sting and inject a paralyzing toxin into other insects, it then buries the insect and lays its eggs on their paralyzed body, the body provides her offspring with a food source. The Garuda has never been studied in the field though so nothing is known about it's behaviors in its natural environment. Since digger wasps usually are species specific when it comes to hosting their offspring scientists still don't know what animals this species uses to rear it's young.