The life of the fig wasp is nature at its worst—from our human perspective, anyway. In order to lay their eggs, female fig wasps have to squeeze into the flowering body of a fig, losing their wings ...

If you love figs, you may have heard some unsettling lore about them: that every fig hides a wasp, because these insects need to crawl inside and die in order for the fruit to grow. But are there ...

Some wasps are unsettling, and then there are species so extreme that even the scientists who study them reach for words like “horror,” “vampire,” and “nightmare.” These insects combine outsized ...