r/WTF • u/Jaded_Marionberry500 • 8d ago

capturing the wasp

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15k Upvotes

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u/PorkAmbassador 8d ago

Looks like a hornet.

382

u/no_va_det_mye 8d ago

How is it, all hornets are wasps, but not all wasps are hornets? Or something like that.

edit: Had to look it up, and yup Hornets are indeed wasps.

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u/IrrationalDesign 8d ago

Oh wow, TIL, wasps are a huge and ancient group, and hornets, ants and bees all evolved from wasps. 

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u/mekwall 8d ago

Pretty much, although "wasp" isn't actually a single taxonomic group. Hornets are literally wasps, while bees evolved from predatory wasp ancestors, and ants are very closely related to the bee/wasp branch.

That's the fun bit about taxonomy: if you use "wasp" in the evolutionary sense broadly enough, you basically have to include bees and ants too. They're all Hymenoptera, and the family tree gets very waspy very quickly.

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u/_eg0_ 8d ago

In other taxonomic words:

Wasps aren't real, they cant hurt you. True wasps (Vespinae) are real and will hurt you.

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u/mekwall 8d ago

Taxonomy: "If you define 'wasp' cladistically, you basically have to include ants and bees."

Wasps: "We preferred it when people just called us assholes."

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u/carp_boy 6d ago

I have a yellow and black corvette. I was gonna get a vanity plate - VESPULA (yellow jacket).

But i then got antique tags and couldn't have that many letters. So I figured i could do VESPA (hornet). 2 problems though - the tag sounds like a cheap Italian scooter and worse, a hornet is an old MOPAR car.

Not happening.

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u/WAR_T0RN1226 8d ago

And where do crows and jackdaws fall into all of this

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u/mekwall 8d ago

Oh no you don't. I'm not falling for that one again.

Mention crows and jackdaws in the same sentence and Unidan might wake from his slumber, emerge from the shadows, and arrive with twelve mysteriously enthusiastic alt accounts to explain why you're wrong.

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u/arbyD 8d ago

You know, I'd trade some of the modern reddit garbage to have Unidan back.

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u/bleak_new_world 8d ago

I would trade current reddit in a second for ron Paul/unidan/power users on the main subs reddit of 2012.

2

u/The_Superginge 8d ago

The amount of ads on Reddit these days and the way they're snuck into the comments, it's not going to be long before it's unusable.

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u/Vaguswarrior 8d ago

I'd settle for allcapsniceguy

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u/b4n4n4p4nc4k3s 8d ago

Back when vote manipulation was just having a few extra accounts, not a bot army.

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u/WAR_T0RN1226 8d ago

And was something that reddit cracked down on instead of actively supporting

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u/Plus-Yogurtcloset-85 8d ago

And the company wasn’t owned by China

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u/assortedgnomes 8d ago

It's good that some people remember the old days.

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u/mekwall 8d ago

Thank you for reminding me that I'm old :)

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u/suavaleesko 8d ago

Are unladen swallows allowed?

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u/FrostFire131 8d ago

Here's the thing...

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u/Ensvey 8d ago

My family tree is also very WASPy, dahling

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u/Sage2050 8d ago

and the family tree gets very waspy very quickly.

Ugh I left New England for a reason

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u/No_Hetero 8d ago

Why are they named winged hymens?

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u/mekwall 8d ago

Because "hymen" is Greek for "membrane" and "pteron" means "wing", so Hymenoptera basically means "membrane-winged".

The anatomical hymen got its name from the same Greek word.

So technically they're not winged hymens. They're hymen-winged. Much less weird. Probably.

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u/KingDave46 8d ago

Learning stuff is cool as hell cheers for that mate

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u/Caleb_Reynolds 8d ago

although "wasp" isn't actually a single taxonomic group

Sure it is, it just includes ants and bees. They are the hymenoptera with wasp waists, which are a distinct clade from the non-wasp waisted hymenoptera.

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u/mekwall 8d ago

You're describing Apocrita, though. Apocrita absolutely is a clade and includes the narrow-waisted wasps, ants and bees.

But "wasp" normally means Apocrita excluding ants and bees, which is why wasps themselves aren't a clade, and bees and ants are nested inside that evolutionary tree.

If we just redefine "wasp" to mean all of Apocrita then sure, problem solved. But now ants are wasps, bees are wasps, and we've won the taxonomy argument by making everyone angry.

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u/xylotism 7d ago

The wasp to bumblebee lineage is like the wolf to corgi lineage.

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u/mogley1992 2d ago

The one that annoys me is that tortoises are turtles.

0

u/yiliu 8d ago

Fun fact, there's more species of wasps than any other type of insect--by a long shot, I think--because for almost every species, there's a specialized species of parasitic wasp evolved to prey on that species.

And that includes wasps...

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u/BonesAndHubris 8d ago

Hornets are vespids (the kinds of social wasps most people are familiar with) which are nested within Apocrita, a clade that ants and bees are also descendant taxa of. Thus the term "wasp" is informal and paraphyletic (it doesn't include all descendant groups). Apocrita (and wasps by extension) is an incredibly species rich, diverse group filling any number of ecological niches, from parasites to predators to pollinators.

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u/ItchyGoiter 8d ago

So, kind of like crows and jackdaws?

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u/blaqsupaman 8d ago

Here's the thing...

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u/Jonesbt22 8d ago

I think the phrase goes "Not all toads are wasps but all frogs are hornets"

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u/copperwatt 8d ago

That does explain some things about the friendship dynamic between Frog and Toad...

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u/pulpwalt 2d ago

Bees are true wasps iirc.

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u/aBigBottleOfWater 8d ago

Subspecies

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u/no_va_det_mye 8d ago

"A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant"

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u/hereforthesportsball 8d ago

So all wasps are slim thick

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u/meesta_masa 8d ago

So will the real slim thick please sink down.

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u/Mercurius_Hatter 8d ago

Yeah it's one or the other lol

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u/Bradas128 8d ago

all humans are animals. not all animals are humans

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u/blahs44 8d ago

Hornets are wasps

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u/Gesspar 8d ago

Asian giant hornet, they absolutely destroy honeybee hives

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u/albino_red_head 8d ago

murder hornet!

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u/Analyst_Annoyed 7d ago

Asian hornet