MARVELS OF METAMORPHOSIS 



819 



AFTER SHEDDING ONE MOEE DRESS, PSAMMY IS READY TO MAKE HER DEBUT 



One brilliant black eye stares fixedly (left). The whole waxlike body has become compact and 

 wasp-shaped. From the thorax, black pigment slowly spreads through the insect, even to the tips 

 of legs and antennae. Articulated armor plates harden on the abdomen. After wriggling out of 

 the transparent pupal sheath, she is a real wasp at last (right). 



OUT CLIMBS THE VIRGIN MOTHER; HUNGRY IS HER FATHERLESS SON 

 Using her sharp mandibles like a carpenter's auger, Psammy has cut her way out of the cocoon. 

 Though she never had a mate, she laid eggs that hatched and produced only "boys (pages 823, 826) . 

 Her "synthetic" offspring, sucking honev-water from a pellet of cotton (right), probably can never 

 become a father. This is the only known photograph of a parthenogenetic Psammochand wasp. 



