Caterina’s Reviews > Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps – Why Nature's Maligned Predators and Pollinators are Essential to Planetary Health > Status Update
Caterina
is on page 59 of 400
Fabre's obsession with wasps [began] with an unexpected moan..about how poorly paid he is for one so highly educated. Happily, Fabre is distracted from this injustice when reading about a yellow-faced crabronid wasp that hunts the beautiful emerald and gold Buprestis jewel beetle: 'And so I was forgetting the poverty and anxieties of a professor's life...New lights burst forth. I received a sort of mental revelation.
— Sep 01, 2025 04:07PM
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Caterina’s Previous Updates
Caterina
is on page 301 of 400
I am often asked whether wasps are contributing to the decline of other 'more useful' insects, such as bees..Based on these calculations, I think it's safe to say that social wasps are not contributing to the recent 'insectageddon,' at least not native wasp species. They are..creaming off the most abundant invertebrates..[helping] keep a diverse community..in check without hunting any to the brink of local existence.
— Jun 27, 2026 07:27AM
Caterina
is on page 277 of 400
Parasitoid wasps-that rarely sting-account for almost 50% of the 230 invertebrate species..commercially used as biocontrol agents.These tiny pest controllers are like house elves-you never see them,only evidence of their work.For the price of a good bottle of wine, you can be the proud owner of enough Trichogramma wasps to strip your house clean of clothes moths.Let them run free-don't worry, you won't even see them.
— Jun 26, 2026 03:56AM
Caterina
is on page 269 of 400
If the benefits of nature are assigned no value, then they will be treated as having no value. -- Dame Professor Georgina Mace, FRS (2014)
— Jun 24, 2026 04:52AM
Caterina
is on page 70 of 400
I have discovered that having teenage children in the house limits the opportunity for kitchen microbiology experiments. This is because teenagers move in on leftover food faster than microorganisms do.
— Sep 07, 2025 05:56AM
Caterina
is on page 41 of 400
Once a mated female finds a nesting site, she bites off her own wings and submits to a life on land.
— Aug 24, 2025 05:10AM
Caterina
is on page 4 of 400
The 'bee story' was written by wasps before bees even evolved, and before wasps had shown humans how to make the paper on which the first bee book could be written.
— Aug 22, 2025 02:37PM