Meet the Parasitic Wasp

Now that students have met the creature that eats caterpillars from the inside out, they can watch this video to learn about the tiny wasp Microplitis demolitor and its creepy lifestyle.

Project the video to the whole class.

• Within ecosystems, organisms of different species depend on one another.
• Some interactions between organisms are predatory.

10 minutes

Meet the Parasitic Wasp (video)

To prepare for the next lesson, begin discussing ecological relationships (e.g., competition, predation, parasitism, commensalism, mutualism). Help students think about the nature of the relationships they just observed.

• What is a parasitic relationship? How is it different from a predatory relationship?
• What does the wasp get from the relationship? Does the caterpillar get anything from the relationship (i.e., is it helped or harmed)?
• What type of relationship do you think the wasp and the caterpillar have?
• What is the caterpillar’s relationship with the soybean plant? (You may want to show the Meet the Soybean Looper video again.)