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Updated: May 1, 2025
Substitute for this Sphex-larva a Scolia-larva of almost the same size; let the dish be the same though the guest is different; and healthy live flesh is promptly replaced by pestilent rotten flesh. That which under the mandibles of the Sphex would for a long while have remained wholesome food promptly becomes a poisonous liquescence under the mandibles of the Scolia.
The mother goes in quest of another prey without troubling further about the egg which has just been laid. There is no effort of carting or building. At the very spot where the Cetonia-grub is caught and paralysed, the Scolia-larva hatches, grows and weaves its cocoon. The establishment of the family is thus reduced to the simplest possible expression.
From the first bite of the mandibles, until the whole head of game is consumed, the Scolia-larva is never seen to withdraw its head and its long neck from inside the creature which it is devouring. I suspect the reason of this persistence in attacking a single point; I even seem to perceive the need for a special art in the manner of eating.
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