Did you know the Emerald Cockroach Wasp carefully zombifies roaches and leads them to their death? They start by carefully stinging the roach in it’s thoracic ganglion temporarily paralyzing it’s front legs.

This allows the wasp the stillness needed to carefully sting the roach in it’s head ganglia (brain) in exactly the right spot to destroy it’s escape reflex. It then chews each antenna down half way and drinks the fluids inside.

Once the roach recovers from the initial paralysis it’s mind has been altered by venom blocking the neurotransmitter octopamine. During this time the roach engages in excessive grooming behaviors but is otherwise docile and compliant.

The roach is too large and strong for the wasp to simply drag, but being mentally unable to escape allows the wasp to guide the roach by pulling the antenna in the direction it wants. Effectively the wasp is in control of the roaches senses.

The roach obediently follows the wasp into its burrow, once there the wasp lays it’s eggs on the roach. The roach waits patiently for about 3 days until the eggs hatch and begin to feed on the live roach.

Being unable to escape the borrow it lives in this state for 4-5 days until the wasp larvae finally eat their way into it’s organs and kill the roach. They then pupate inside a cocoon which is itself inside the body of the now dead roach.

Eventually the new adult wasps emerge from the body of the roach to begin a new lifecycle.
I think she’s a queen.