The Dementor Wasp

The largest of the 170 or species of the Ampulicidae family, the dementor wasp is native to Thailand, red and black in colour, and the females are about ten millimetres long. They are probably worth avoiding, especially if you are a cockroach.

According to a study published in 2010 in Communicative and Integrative Biology. The wasp injects the brain of its cockroach victim with a toxin that keeps the cockroach alive but in a zombie-like state. The wasp then deposits its eggs into the cockroach’s body and the larvae, when hatched, feed on the victim’s remains.    

The wasp was first described by Michael Ohl of the Museum for Naturkunde in Berlin and when the selection of the species name was put to a public vote amongst visitors to the museum, the resemblance to the fictional characters of dementors in the Harry Potter series which are soul-sucking, dark creatures that feed on human happiness, leaving their victims in a vegetative state, was too good an opportunity to miss. And so, the wasp was saddled with the scientific name of Ampulex dementor.

Democracy, eh?