Short Stuff: Figs & Wasps

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0:39Hey, and welcome to The Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here, too, sitting in for Dave. So this is Short Stuff. Yeah, this is an episode where I was very surprised, and I even went back, that when we did our episode on wasps, we even got emails about this, so I'm pretty sure we did not cover it. Yeah. But we're talking about fig wasps of the fig tree specifically, not the kind that you see. Almost all fig tree varieties are not ones that you eat the fruit of. That's a very specific one. The ones like you have out in your yard, they develop without pollination, which means they're parthenocarpic.

1:16But the ones where you eat the figs, they are grown commercially mainly in California here in the United States. They are Calamyrna figs, and they are imported from Turkey. And the ficus carica, or the fig wasp, is also imported from Turkey because they have a very special relationship. Yeah. So fig wasps and that specific kind of fig, apparently, co-evolved over the last 60 million years to form a mutually symbiotic relationship, as our friend Connor from Love on the Spectrum would say. where the fig wasp depends on the fig for its reproductive cycle. The fig depends on the fig wasp for its reproductive cycle.

2:02And if you didn't have one or the other, the other one would not exist. Yeah, totally. And we're going to tell you how that happens right now. I was going to say right after this, but that'd be way too soon. First thing we need to say is that the fig, the thing that you're eating, It's something within a larger structure, and it's called a syconium is what you're actually eating. It's sort of like an inverted flower. It's not really a fruit necessarily. No. And what happens is these Calamyrna farmers in California, they have female trees that are going to produce that edible version of the syconia, and they have male trees that produce an inedible version called a gall fig.

2:46and if they want to pollinate those, a wasp has to crawl into that synconium, a female wasp. She loses her wings on the way because she has to squeeze through a tight little passage. It's a one-way trip, which is very sad. And you end up eating that female wasp. She's broken down by something called phycine. It's a protein-digesting enzyme. So when you eat a fig, there is a little bit of female wasp inside of that thing just broken down and becoming part of that edible fig. Yeah, but essentially you're not going to be able to detect it on your tongue. Some people think that the little tiny seeds inside of a fig are wasp parts because there's been such a legend that developed about like fig wasps.

3:28And it is true to some degree, but for the most part, no, you're not detecting a fig wasps like body or exoskeleton when you're eating a fig. You are eating part of a wasp, though. Like, don't make no mistake. For sure. And I mentioned it was a one way trip. It's fairly sad that that happens, but it's all in good service of that mutual arrangement. Before that happens, this female wasp is going to come out of an inedible male fig. I guess I'm going to call it a fruit because she was born there. And she has mated by that point with a blind wingless male wasp who never leaves that male fig. So she exits that inedible male fig.

4:09She picks up some pollen. She's got all these eggs. And at that point, she can either go to a male fig tree or a female fig tree. But if she lands on that female fig tree, her ovipositor is too short to reach into this really, you know, long-styled female flower. So she can't lay those eggs in there. She does end up pollinating it, but she sacrifices her life in doing so. Yeah, she makes it all the way to the synconium and finds, like, I've literally just wasted my life. But her life is not a waste because if she didn't accidentally enter a female fig where she was trying to reproduce or lay her eggs in a male fig, then the figs would not get pollinated.

4:49So figs get pollinated because fig wasps sometimes make mistakes when choosing a male or a female fig to burrow into and lay their eggs. I find that amazing. Yeah, it's pretty great. Like it works both ways. If she goes into that male fig, then she's going to deposit those fertilized eggs. And that circle just kind of keeps going on and on. Farmers separate these trees out to try and keep them from doing that. I protest that. I'm protesting. Oh, you're protesting them doing that? I protest that there are male and female fig trees. I've seen that they're self-pollinating and hermaphroditic, including the ones that you eat.

5:26So I'm going on record as saying that. Well, you're wrong, my friend, because this farmer that was interviewed said that they separate those male and female trees. I don't think he's just making that up to aggravate you. What if he's completely off his rocker? I mean, are all the farmers and all the sources completely off their rocker? So I think this is just one of those times where we're going to have to agree to disagree. Do you agree? Sure. That's very agreeable. All right. We'll be back right after this.

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7:43So a few things that we can remember is that female wasp dies inside that edible fig. And there have been people like vegans. There are vegans. I'm not going to say there have been. There are literally vegans who won't eat that. But there are bugs in almost every fruit that you eat. There are levels of bug, I was about to say infestation, but just bug activity that's acceptable for the USDA. Tomato ketchup, apparently. It has the highest USDA grade standard possible, and it can have no more than 30 fruit fly eggs per every 100 grams of ketchup. Like, surely, I guess there's some quality control where they take some like 100 ounces or 100 grams of ketchup and count the fruit fly eggs in it, right?

8:32I don't know how they do that. And if that is like if they find 31 or even 100, that doesn't necessarily mean that the next bottle is going to have the same amount. Because, I mean, we're talking fruit fly eggs, right, from all sorts of different tomatoes in each bottle. Yeah. It boggles my mind. I don't know how they do this. No. Or how they enforce it, I guess, is what I mean. Yeah, I bet someone or it might be one of those things where like no one's even paying attention to this. Right. The vegans are. Vegans are watching you. Yes, they're always watching. I did mention, though, that the farmers try and control the, you know, separating those trees out to control because it can be a problem if there are too many seeds.

9:12That fruit can burst open and all of a sudden it's not, you know, it's good for the plant, but it's not good to harvest for the farmer. So they're trying to sell these things. So they separate those trees out over some pretty great distances and also control the number of new wasps that they bring in. They're like they're wasp wranglers as well as farmers. And they get these things delivered to their house, to their farm in paper sacks. And they can pretty much control exactly how many females have access to the correct plant. Yeah. And those paper sacks also usually include a tiny cowboy hat and a tiny lasso.

9:45And then just one more time to just kind of go over this again, just to calm anybody's fears. You probably are eating some insects. So vegans, you're right. If you don't want to eat insects, you probably should steer clear of figs. But the fig is designed to digest the female wasp that dies inside of it and breaks it down for nutrients for itself. So just don't worry about eating wasps. I don't know why everybody's so worried about eating wasps, Chuck. Yeah. I mean, it is fig at that point. That wasp becomes fig. Right. In fact, that's a great T-shirt. Wasp becomes fig. I agree wholeheartedly.

10:21well since we came up with a t-shirt obviously everybody that means short stuff is out

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