Another cross-species gene transfer
Click on the photo for the full story
I still like the green sea slug plantimal as the best cross-species gene transfer, but wasps are pretty good too.
There’s no consent for these surrogate parents. Tens of thousands of wasp species lay their eggs inside caterpillars [ed. Google says there are more than 200,000 species of wasp], injecting toxins that paralyze the hosts and allow their young to feast on the innards with impunity. Researchers have long wondered what exactly these toxins are and where they came from. The answers, a new genetic analysis reveals, have to do with a virus that infected wasps millions of years ago.
That’s pretty sweet. Wasp gets infected by toxic virus. Wasp co-opts virus genes and uses it as toxin to let babies feast on a caterpillars. Wasp has 10,000 descendant species.
Or…. if you prefer…. God made 200,000 species of wasps, and gave only 10,000 of them the ability to lay their eggs inside catapillars, and inject the caterpillars with virus-like toxin that coincidentally perfectly matches the DNA from an actual virus. He does this just to tweak the collective nipples of anybody who might be sequencing DNA strands 6,000-10,000 years after the creation.
You know. Whichever works for you.