this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
103 points (97.2% liked)

Damn, that's interesting!

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This wasp is half the size of an amoeba and its microscopic brain has a trick up its sleeve.. (blogs.dal.ca)
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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These wasps are not single-celled organisms though, and their brains alone contain 4600 neurons. For reference, the brain of a honeybee contains ~1 million neurons. Despite their extremely small heads (again, look at that head next to the SINGLE CELLED amoeba) the wasps can still fly, seek out mates, and find thrip eggs to parasitize. So…what? How?

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago

Answer: "The lifespan of these wasps is only 5 days"

"it's brain cells get rid of their own nucleus and all its stored maintenance information. The neurons already exist, so maintenance is the only task [...] requiring DNA, and they don’t live long enough for that to matter at this point"

"No nucleus or DNA frees up half of a neuron’s volume"