“I miss you,” he blurted out truthfully.
Instantly he knew he had overstepped his mark. Beth rose to her feet. With as much dignity as she could muster, she neatly folded the napkin on the table, turned on her heel, and left. Mark watched her walk out with straight slim shoulders and her head held high. An intense wave of disappointment and loneliness engulfed him.
CHAPTER 9
Seven summers ago, when Beth’s fallen tree was still lofty and strong, a Cicada laid her eggs on a twig in its leafy crown. Using sharp serrations on her egg laying tube, called an ovipositor, she cut a slit in the surface of the bark. She deposited a dozen eggs in the slot. By repeating this process many times during the next few days, she successfully concealed hundreds of eggs throughout the foliage of the Gum tree. With her life task complete, she soon died. Yet her death marked the completion of an extraordinary and successful journey. Her young were about to embark on a similar adventure.
Eight weeks later, minute nymphs, no bigger than fleas, emerged from her eggs. Immediately upon hatching, these tiny paratroopers launched themselves skyward and floated silently down to earth, their fall cushioned by the soft leaf litter. Instinct drove them at once to dig into the ground, using specially adapted forelegs. Within minutes the nymphs were concealed. So began years of secret, subterranean development. The baby Cicadas sought out the roots of Gum trees, feeding on their sweet sticky sap in relative safety. Having found a juicy root, each nymph then dug itself an adjacent burrow. Its waste fluids helped to moisten and consolidate the chamber walls. In perpetual darkness and isolation each nymph grew, periodically moulting and enlarging its cell.
Even underground there were dangers to face. Some nymphs became too dry or too wet, depending on the location of their tunnels. Others starved when their tree root died or became diseased. Yet others had their bodies infected by mould or were parasitised by beetle larvae. However the majority survived, spending years in dark and solitary confinement until they were fully developed. These little nymphs did not undergo the same dramatic metamorphosis as Zenandra’s wasplings. They were in fact, from the very start, tiny, wingless copies of their mother. During their long years underground they slowly grew wing buds on the outside of their bodies. These buds burst into functional wings after the last moult. The young Cicada’s reproductive organs also matured at this time.
Now fully developed, the ungainly brown babies began the arduous task of digging up and out of their confined home of clay and roots. After many days work, their escape tunnels were almost complete. Some unfortunate nymphs emerged into the cavity containing Zenandra’s nest. The other inhabitants of the hollow had long since been consumed by the wasps or had fled in terror. Unable to access the outside world, the hapless Cicada nymphs blundered helplessly about until their movements attracted the attention of the worker wasps on guard above. The clumsy, confused juveniles were eagerly pounced upon. Their tough shells provided protection for a short time, but eventually their attackers gained access to their soft bodies through chinks in their plated armour. The wasps sliced the living tissue into pieces with their sharp mandibles. Before the nymphs were even dead, their meat was being transported into the nest to feed the growing hordes of hungry wasplings.
Other nymphs had more luck. Those who successfully completed their tunnels, stopped digging just short of the surface. A soft summer rain was falling, causing them to retreat temporarily to their underground chambers. There they waited for the invisible signal that would compel them to emerge. On a hot, still night in midsummer, the patient nymphs began their exodus. Climbing to the tops of their burrows, they broke through the thin earth plug and out into the open air. The night already reverberated to the chorus of a multitude of their kin. An unrequited longing for the companionship of its kind, spurred each lonely nymph forward.
Accustomed only to total darkness, even the soft light of a young crescent moon was enough to temporarily blind them. Slowly their eyes adjusted, and with faltering steps each instinctively sought a vertical surface. Some climbed up the exterior of the fallen tree. Others scaled nearby Gum tree trunks, thereby gaining additional height and safety. Having chosen a suitable perch, each nymph quietly began its transformation into a winged adult. To the casual observer, nothing much happened at first. Yet underneath its ugly brown casing, each juvenile was pumping extra air through its breathing holes or spiracles. The build-up of air pressure eventually split its outer shell. Slowly but surely, a brilliant green head and thorax appeared, in dramatic contrast to the original drab, muddy skin. By midnight the Cicada was fully emerged. It hung from its discarded casing, crumpled wings slowly unfurling under the pressure of blood being pumped through a network of branching veins. New, delicate legs were quite different from the broad, shovel like feet of its nymphhood. Its emerald green colouring faded during the remaining hours of darkness. By dawn it was a dull green, its wings having hardened and lost their bright aqua opacity.
Owls and small, insectivorous bats, took several emerging cicadas during the night, but most survived to witness their first sunrise. One by one they embarked on their inaugural flight to freedom, together with all the perils freedom brings.
The throbbing, cadenced song of the males was designed to be irresistible to the opposite sex. Females alighted on a cicada tree, drawn by the deafening serenade of their suitors. At an appropriate moment the male softened his call, crept up to the female and mated. Each female took the opportunity to mate several times over the next day or so. She then commenced to lay her eggs, her final task before death.
Many more Cicadas fell victim to predators over the next few days. Birds ate their fill. Large Huntsman spiders scurried over the tree trunks, so excited by the profusion of prey that they exposed themselves even in daylight. But spider and Cicada alike faced an even more formidable predator – the wasp. Oddly enough, the giant spiders had no strategies to repel the hunting wasps. In their presence they ran about in blind terror, or cowered, trembling under the wasp’s cold scrutiny. Over millions of years the wasps became tremendously skilled at spider hunting. The spiders, on the other hand, developed inferiority complexes in dealing with their hereditary killers. There appeared to be no reason why the spiders always played the victim. They were well armed, and much larger than their attackers. There was no doubt however, that the wasps held the psychological advantage.
The Cicadas also faced killer wasps. In the eroded patches along the edge of Beth’s neglected lawn, lay several irregular mounds of earth. The large holes adjacent to the grooved piles of dirt convinced Beth that these were the nests of some particularly enormous Bull ants. She gave her children strict instructions not to venture barefoot onto the grass. But had she been more observant, she would have discovered that these were the nests of wasps, not ants.
One still, humid summer evening, a large, brightly coloured wasp alighted on a patch of earth beneath Beth’s apple tree. She had emerged from her birth burrow and mated only one day ago. Now her urge to nest and to complete her own life-cycle was overwhelming. Somehow she knew she must hurry, for she would live only thirty short days. The wasp chose her nest site with great care. It was devoid of vegetation and well drained with friable light clay soil. She commenced to tunnel and continued right through the warm night. This wasp was a strong, persistent digger, industriously shovelling soil out of the burrow mouth and scattering it far behind her. She was a large insect, and the sound of her mandibles biting into the clay was clearly audible. Her forelegs constantly raked back the displaced earth. Periodically backing out of her burrow, she pushed soil behind her into a heap at the entrance. This she left as a surrounding rim, as did many ants.
The volume of soil moved each time was, of course, small. One can imagine the enormous amount of energy expended in digging a vertical tunnel almost two feet deep in such a manner. All around her, the air vibrated to the loud, rhythmic song of a host of Cicadas. The wasp paused to listen. She would find no shortage of victims in the morning. For thi
s was a female Cicada Killer wasp and she would take no other prey. Shortly after sunrise, having paused neither to rest nor feed, she began her hunt.
Her flight was rapid and strong as she approached a nearby Gum tree likely to harbour her quarry. She located Cicadas by sight and smell. Circling the tree trunk, she gradually spiralled upwards through the limbs and branches. It was not long before she found what she was looking for. A large Cicada sat motionless underneath a leaf. The wasp darted back and forth several times in front of her target, all the while positioning her sting downward and forward. Without warning she slammed viciously into her victim and inserted her sting neatly between its abdominal segments. She paralysed her prey with an injection of apitoxin and a histamine like anaesthetic. In order to perform this operation, the wasp needed an intimate knowledge of the cicada’s nervous system. Her specialisation was so precise that she was restricted to harvesting Cicadas exclusively, being unfamiliar with the anatomy of other prey. The unsuspecting bug uttered a loud, distressed squawk and buzzed shrilly for a moment. It soon ceased to struggle. The attacker and her victim both dropped to the ground with a thud that produced a last rattling protest from the stupefied Cicada.
The wasp proceeded to drag it through grass and weeds and over sticks to her freshly dug burrow. This was despite the fact that the Cicada weighed six times more than she did. Throwing it onto its back so that it would glide easily along, the wasp straddled her load and gripped it firmly with her middle pair of legs. She then commenced her unerring homeward journey. Using her wings to assist her, she travelled along the ground at an amazing rate. Within minutes she arrived at the nest’s entrance and disappeared quickly inside. The unfortunate Cicada, in a state of deep paralysis, was now unceremoniously packed upside down and head first into a small mud-cell within the burrow. The Cicada Killer wasp laid a single egg upon the body of the powerless insect. Two more Cicadas soon joined the first. She then closed the cell, packing earth fill against her victim’s abdomen and wing tips. She proceeded to similarly provision many other cells. During the course of the summer, she and others like her posed a deadly and ever present threat to the Cicada population in Beth’s garden.
After only two days, the egg of the Cicada Killer hatched. This wasp grub developed rapidly in comparison with Zenandra’s first born. She soon consumed the first, helpless Cicada, then the next, leaving their exoskeletons largely intact. After a week of feeding she spun her cocoon. In another week she emerged as an adult, programmed to repeat her mother’s predatory life cycle. Yet like Zenandra, the newly emerged wasp now became a complete vegetarian.
Meanwhile, the nearby nest of the European wasps continued to grow. Sufficient adult daughters had now been born to allow Zenandra to remain safely at home and concentrate on egg laying duties. It was a sunny summer morning when Sabrina embarked on her first foraging flight for the day. On a typical day she made up to twenty such trips. When she first ventured from the nest on her inaugural flight, she stayed close by her home, memorising its location from observing conspicuous landmarks. She dipped and circled, staring closely at an unusually shaped branch here and a prominent gatepost there. Soon she felt confident to explore Beth’s garden. Before long she discovered the sweetest flowers and the nearest accessible water. She found the trees that bore the most succulent caterpillars and she enthusiastically investigated potential sources of fibre. A weather- beaten old wicker chair on the verandah provided Sabrina with her favourite supply of pulp. Another popular collection site was the pile of old cardboard boxes discarded behind the stable.
She gathered the construction material by walking slowly backwards, while rasping off strips with her mandibles. This procedure made a soft click, click sound, clearly audible from a distance of several feet away. She then cleverly rolled the strip into a ball, picked it up in her mouth and flew back home. On entering the nest she often transferred her load of pulp to a willing nest mate, preferring to spend her time on the wing. However she was perfectly capable of performing nest extension tasks herself, if necessary. Sabrina was the embodiment of multi skilling. She commenced construction by running rapidly about the nest surface, feeling it with her antennae. Finally she decided to extend the walls of a cell that was slightly shorter than those adjoining it. As she applied the pulp to the cell’s edge, she simultaneously regurgitated water from her crop, making the building material softer and more malleable. She used her mandibles as an artisan uses his tools, delicately smoothing and shaping the fibres, working them over and over for several minutes, never faltering in her design, despite working in almost total darkness. When she finished she always groomed herself, thoroughly cleaning away any adhering particles to maintain her immaculate appearance. The talented worker wasp then took a short but well earned rest.
Today however, Sabrina was going hunting. A rough division of labour emerged among the wasps in the colony, although they did not display the highly specialised behaviour of ants. Each wasp was an individual, quite capable of performing all required tasks, however they did develop distinct preferences. Sabrina was a career-woman wasp. Caring for the babies held no appeal for her. She liked to hunt and looked forward to it. But first she required a decent feed. As she rose from the nest, a curious little bird known as a Grey Fantail considered making a meal of her. He fluttered off, having recalled a previous encounter with a similar wasp. Everyone now seemed aware of the formidable sting of Sabrina and her kind. She flew on, quite fearless.
Spiralling skywards, she cast an eye briefly about to confirm her bearings and then flew purposefully towards Beth’s house. She made a beeline, or in this case a waspline, for the traps outside the kitchen window. Under the dappled shade of a purple flowering Lasiandra hung a plastic orb containing honey and water. An access-hole led to the central chamber, where more than a dozen dead European wasps floated in the sweet liquid lure. Sabrina alighted on the exterior surface of the trap, and trotted directly in and up. Once inside she progressed with great care, clinging firmly to the side and tap, tap, tapping her antennae ahead of her as she approached the bait. Expertly maintaining her foothold, she imbibed the delicious, slightly fermented honey-water. All around her bobbed the drowned corpses of her kind. Many were her sisters. Upon first venturing into the trap, she felt vaguely uneasy at the sight of the dead wasps. She sensed danger. Fortunately, due either to chance or superior intelligence, she quickly found her way out after drinking her fill. Several other captive wasps that had yet to succumb to their sticky fate, closely observed her exit. Following her example, they too made a successful escape. Since that first day, Sabrina often fed at the trap, now completely ignoring her dead companions. Having satisfied her hunger she made a practiced departure.
The warmth of the sun and the energy provided by her recent meal gave Sabrina a new bounce to her buzz. She set off in the direction of the hay shed. Sabrina and her sisters were opportunistic hunters, quick to capitalise on any available food sources within their territory. Her ability to adapt to new circumstances gave her a huge advantage over many native wasps such as the Cicada Killers, which were restricted by highly specialised prey preferences and hunting behaviours. Sabrina had recently discovered a young Paper wasp nest at the back of the hay shed. Today she would turn cannibal. Wasps, or to be more precise, their pupae, were on the menu.
On arrival at the prey nest Sabrina wasted no time, callously breaking open the cocoon cap on a pupal cell. An agitated Paper wasp worker or two buzzed around the marauder, unsure of what to do. Not having evolved with the threat of European wasps, the colony seemed to lack any defence response. After gaining access to the cell, Sabrina roughly pulled out the fat pupae within, grasped it firmly with her legs and mandibles, and flew off to deliver it to her little sisters. When she arrived home, her nest mates enthusiastically took and distributed the meat amongst the hungry wasplings, thus freeing this efficient and experienced forager for another trip. Sabrina repeated this procedure again and again, until there were no more pupae or large larv
ae left in the nest. Over the next few weeks the Paper wasp colony was entirely destroyed through recurrent attacks by this single European wasp.
While Sabrina enjoyed hunting, others had their own favourite day-jobs. On hot days many younger workers enjoyed collecting water. They required it for paper making and used their gut as a storage tank, but it was also fun to cool-off. The presence of wasps was a telltale indicator of a dependable water supply. Each worker tended to persist at a given task on a given day. This was due to the ability of the wasps to learn. Workers returned time and time again to the same fibre, food or water source. Once a wasp discovered a promising location, she took a short orientation flight over it, much as she did when memorising her nest site. This greatly contributed to foraging efficiency by reducing the need to re-explore territory. Once the source was depleted, the worker forgot about the site and chose a different place or a new task. Zenandra’s nest was well served by her capable daughters whose numbers continued to grow.
CHAPTER 10
Mark returned to his office, feeling miserable and confused by Beth’s abrupt departure at lunch. He desperately wanted her to stay, yet his behaviour apparently drove her away. He was only trying to be understanding. Couldn’t she see that they needed to talk? After all, hadn’t lunch been her idea in the first place? He was still confident of one thing however. The children continued to give him leverage in her life. Although Mark lacked a degree of insight into his current situation, at a gut level he realised an important truth – he needed a friend right now. Friends were few and far between these days. For a long time he had considered himself too busy and important to devote time to relationships of any kind, except perhaps those with his older children. Increasingly his life seemed to lack purpose or direction. Instinctively he reached for the one person he had felt connected to during his years of ambitious career building – his estranged wife.
Wasp Season Page 7
