{"id":152657,"date":"2014-07-17T16:27:38","date_gmt":"2014-07-17T19:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=152657"},"modified":"2014-07-17T16:27:38","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T19:27:38","slug":"tiny-mummifiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/tiny-mummifiers\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny mummifiers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_152658\" style=\"max-width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-152658\" alt=\"The wasp Aleiodes falloni, which deposits its eggs... \" src=\"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Tecno_falloni-face-1.jpg\" width=\"290\" height=\"228\" srcset=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Tecno_falloni-face-1.jpg 290w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Tecno_falloni-face-1-120x94.jpg 120w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Tecno_falloni-face-1-250x197.jpg 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"media-credits-inline\">EDUARDO SHIMBORI \/ UFSCAR<\/span>The wasp Aleiodes falloni, which deposits its eggs&#8230;<span class=\"media-credits\">EDUARDO SHIMBORI \/ UFSCAR<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p>In Ecuador, in lands known as the home of indigenous tribes that shrunk the heads of their enemies, a new kind of mummifier has been discovered. Namely, 24 new species of wasps of the genus <i>Aleiodes<\/i>, found on the eastern slopes of the Andes. These insects, which measure four to nine millimeters long, have been described by Brazilian biologist Eduardo Shimbori from the Federal University of S\u00e3o Carlos (UFSCar) and American researcher Scott Shaw from the University of Wyoming (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pensoft.net\/journals\/zookeys\/article\/7402\/twenty-four-new-species-of-aleiodes-wesmael-from-the-eastern-andes-of-ecuador-with-associated-biological-information-hym\" target=\"_blank\"><i>ZooKeys<\/i>, 2014<\/a>). The females inject an egg into a specific caterpillar, in whose body the wasp larva grows and causes the host&#8217;s skin to harden, mummifying it. The larva then completes its development cycle inside the caterpillar.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_152659\" style=\"max-width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-152659\" alt=\"... in a caterpillar's body and mummifies it \" src=\"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Tecno_shakirae-bent-mummy.jpg\" width=\"290\" height=\"227\" srcset=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Tecno_shakirae-bent-mummy.jpg 290w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Tecno_shakirae-bent-mummy-120x94.jpg 120w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Tecno_shakirae-bent-mummy-250x196.jpg 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"media-credits-inline\">EDUARDO SHIMBORI \/ UFSCAR<\/span>&#8230; in a caterpillar&#8217;s body and mummifies it<span class=\"media-credits\">EDUARDO SHIMBORI \/ UFSCAR<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p>Many of the new wasp species were named after celebrities \u2014 <i>Aleiodes shakirae<\/i>, for instance. The reference to Colombian singer Shakira was inspired by the way the caterpillar wriggles as it is being mummified. According to Shimbori, there at least 160 <i>Aleiodes<\/i> species in Brazil that have yet to be described. Since 2010, he has been trying to narrow the gap by working on a postdoctoral project supervised by Ang\u00e9lica Penteado-Dias, coordinator of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hympar.ufscar.br\/\" target=\"_blank\">National Institute of Science and Technology of the Parasitoid Wasps of Southeastern Brazil<\/a>. \u201cParasitoids are always associated with the insects they use as hosts, so this knowledge is very important for research on ecology and evolution, and also for the control of agricultural pests,\u201d says the biologist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Andes wasp species mummify caterpillars in which they lay eggs","protected":false},"author":475,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[168],"tags":[209,224,266],"coauthors":[785],"class_list":["post-152657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technoscience","tag-biology","tag-ecology","tag-zoology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152657\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152657"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=152657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}