May 14, 2025 • 8 mins
Today Chuck and Josh look at the interesting relationship between figs and wasps.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, 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.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
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.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Yeah, but we're talking.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
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.
(00:41):
But the ones that where you eat the figs, they
are grown commercially, mainly in California here in the United States.
They are Calimerna 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.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, so fig wasps and that specific kind of fig
apparently co evolved over the last sixty 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
(01:23):
depends on the fig wasp for its reproductive cycle. And
if you didn't have one or the other, the other
one would not exist.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, totally, And we're going to tell you how that
happens right now. I was gonna say right for this,
but that'd be way too soon for the 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 seconium, is what you're actually eating. It's
sort of like an inverted flower. It's not really a
(01:53):
fruit necessarily, No. And what happens is these Calimurna farmers
in California, they have female trees that are going to
produce that edible version of the sinconia, and they have
male trees that produce an inedible version called a golf fig.
And if they want to pollinate those, a wasp has
(02:14):
to crawl into that sinconium, a female wasp. She loses
her wings on the way because she has a 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 physine. It's
a protein digesting enzyme.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
So when you.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
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, and it is true to some degree, but
for the most part, No, you're not detecting a fig
wasps like body or exo skeleton. When you're eating a fig.
(03:02):
You are eating part of a wasp though, Like, don't
make no mistake for sure.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
And I mentioned it was the one way trips.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
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 gonna come out of an inedible male fig.
I guess I'm gonna call it a fruit because she
was born there and she has mate it by that
point with a blind, wingless male wasp who never leaves
(03:30):
that male fig. So she exits that inedible male fig,
she picks up some pollen.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
She got all these eggs, and at that.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
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.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yeah, she makes it all the way to the synconium
and finds like, I 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. So figs get pollinated
because fig wasps sometimes make mistakes when choosing a male
(04:20):
or a female fig to burrow into and lay their eggs.
I find that amazing.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, it's pretty great, Like it works both ways. If
she goes into that male fig, then she's gonna 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.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I protest that I'm protesting.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Oh you're protesting them doing that.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
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. So I'm going on record as
saying that.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
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.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
What if he's completely off his rocker.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I mean, are all the farmers and all the sources
completely off their rocker?
Speaker 1 (05:09):
So I think this is just one of those times
where we're gonna have to agree to disagree. Do you agree?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Sure, that's very agreeable.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
All right, we'll be back right after this.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
So a few things that we can remember is that
the female wasp dies inside that edible fig. And there
have been people like vegans that there are vegans and say,
there have been there are literally vegans who won't eat that.
But it's there are bugs in almost every fruit that
you eat. There are levels of bug so i'd say infestation,
(06:05):
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 thirty fruit.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Fly eggs for every one hundred grams of ketchup.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Like, surely, I guess there's some quality control where they
take some like one hundred ounces or one hundred grams
of ketchup and count the fruitfly eggs in it, right,
I don't know how they do that, and if that
is they like, if they find thirty one or even
one hundred, that doesn't necessarily mean that the next bottle
is going to have the same amount, because I mean
(06:41):
we're talking fruitfly 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.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, I bet someone or it might be one of
those things where like no one's even paying attention to.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
This, right the vegans are vegans are watching you?
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yes, they're always watching.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I did mention though, that the farmers try and control
the separating those trees out to control because it can
be a problem if there are too many seeds that
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 farmers. So they're trying
to sell these things. So they separate those trees out
over some pretty great distances and also control the number
(07:23):
of new wasp 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 and paper sacks,
and they can pretty much control exactly how many females
have access to the correct plant.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, and those paper sacks also usually include a tiny
cowboy hat and a tiny glat so and 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
(08:00):
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.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Mean it is fig.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
At that point that wasp becomes fig. In fact, that's
a great t shirt. Wasp becomes fig.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
I agree wholeheartedly. Well, since we came up with a
t shirt, obviously everybody that means short stuff is opps.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, 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.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
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.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Yeah, but we're talking.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
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.
(00:41):
But the ones that where you eat the figs, they
are grown commercially, mainly in California here in the United States.
They are Calimerna 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.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, so fig wasps and that specific kind of fig
apparently co evolved over the last sixty 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
(01:23):
depends on the fig wasp for its reproductive cycle. And
if you didn't have one or the other, the other
one would not exist.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, totally, And we're going to tell you how that
happens right now. I was gonna say right for this,
but that'd be way too soon for the 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 seconium, is what you're actually eating. It's
sort of like an inverted flower. It's not really a
(01:53):
fruit necessarily, No. And what happens is these Calimurna farmers
in California, they have female trees that are going to
produce that edible version of the sinconia, and they have
male trees that produce an inedible version called a golf fig.
And if they want to pollinate those, a wasp has
(02:14):
to crawl into that sinconium, a female wasp. She loses
her wings on the way because she has a 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 physine. It's
a protein digesting enzyme.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
So when you.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
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, and it is true to some degree, but
for the most part, No, you're not detecting a fig
wasps like body or exo skeleton. When you're eating a fig.
(03:02):
You are eating part of a wasp though, Like, don't
make no mistake for sure.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
And I mentioned it was the one way trips.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
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 gonna come out of an inedible male fig.
I guess I'm gonna call it a fruit because she
was born there and she has mate it by that
point with a blind, wingless male wasp who never leaves
(03:30):
that male fig. So she exits that inedible male fig,
she picks up some pollen.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
She got all these eggs, and at that.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
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.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yeah, she makes it all the way to the synconium
and finds like, I 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. So figs get pollinated
because fig wasps sometimes make mistakes when choosing a male
(04:20):
or a female fig to burrow into and lay their eggs.
I find that amazing.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, it's pretty great, Like it works both ways. If
she goes into that male fig, then she's gonna 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.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I protest that I'm protesting.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Oh you're protesting them doing that.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
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. So I'm going on record as
saying that.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
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.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
What if he's completely off his rocker.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I mean, are all the farmers and all the sources
completely off their rocker?
Speaker 1 (05:09):
So I think this is just one of those times
where we're gonna have to agree to disagree. Do you agree?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Sure, that's very agreeable.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
All right, we'll be back right after this.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
So a few things that we can remember is that
the female wasp dies inside that edible fig. And there
have been people like vegans that there are vegans and say,
there have been there are literally vegans who won't eat that.
But it's there are bugs in almost every fruit that
you eat. There are levels of bug so i'd say infestation,
(06:05):
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 thirty fruit.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Fly eggs for every one hundred grams of ketchup.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Like, surely, I guess there's some quality control where they
take some like one hundred ounces or one hundred grams
of ketchup and count the fruitfly eggs in it, right,
I don't know how they do that, and if that
is they like, if they find thirty one or even
one hundred, that doesn't necessarily mean that the next bottle
is going to have the same amount, because I mean
(06:41):
we're talking fruitfly 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.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, I bet someone or it might be one of
those things where like no one's even paying attention to.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
This, right the vegans are vegans are watching you?
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yes, they're always watching.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I did mention though, that the farmers try and control
the separating those trees out to control because it can
be a problem if there are too many seeds that
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 farmers. So they're trying
to sell these things. So they separate those trees out
over some pretty great distances and also control the number
(07:23):
of new wasp 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 and paper sacks,
and they can pretty much control exactly how many females
have access to the correct plant.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, and those paper sacks also usually include a tiny
cowboy hat and a tiny glat so and 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
(08:00):
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.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Mean it is fig.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
At that point that wasp becomes fig. In fact, that's
a great t shirt. Wasp becomes fig.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
I agree wholeheartedly. Well, since we came up with a
t shirt, obviously everybody that means short stuff is opps.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Should Know News
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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