Insects don’t have abilities to regrow lost parts of their bodies, like reptiles. The wings are one of the most important parts of the wasp body, that’s why when the insect loses them, there’s a high chance that this wasp is going to die soon.
Wasps can’t regrow their wings. The wings are a sign that a wasp is an already developed and grown insect, meaning it will not molt, as it has already passed that stage. The damaged wings make flying harder, so the wasp is more likely to die in a few hours.
If there’s some type of malfunction or damage with wings, the insect becomes helpless. It becomes fragile to different threats, basically becomes easy prey for other insects or animals.
When do the wasp’s wings develop?
Each wasp goes through the complete metamorphosis from an egg, larvae, pupa to a full-grown wasp in one of the cells of the nest. The life cycle of the wasp measures in these stages:
- Queen wasp lays eggs in one cell
This starts when the first cells are built, and the new queen that survived from the previous year lays its eggs. This process continues during the whole season. - Larvae hatch and reach full growth
The worker wasp is responsible for feeding the larvae that will quickly go to pupation. The food should be very good. Larvae are usually fed with insects, such as flies, mosquitoes, fruits, pollens, etc. During the larval stage, wasps gain needed nutrients and start growing their limbs and wings.
- Worker wasp seals the cell
The worker wasps are responsible for improving the construction of the nest as well as continuing feeding the newly laid eggs.
- The larva becomes a pupa
The pupae already look very much like an adult wasp and are equal in size. At this stage, the wings have already been finally put on, and only develop their final appearance.
When an adult wasp is fully developed, it emerges by chewing through the cell cover.
There is an interesting fact about the worker wasps. They usually bring raw food that they can’t digest to the nest and give it to the workers who feed the larvae. As a response to this, larvae release a drop of predigested materials that has all nutritions and ingredients for the workers to eat. Social wasps create colonies every year in spring from scratch by the queen who survived the winter through hibernating.
There are also solitary wasps. They do not build paper nests or create colonies. They are all fertile and considered to be by far the largest subgroup. But actually, all wasps have some kind of nest. Usually, solitary wasps make their small nests in the ground or on walls.
The wasp wings are made of Chitin. They are plate-like extensions of the outer skeleton of the wasp.
The wings are also strengthened by little veins. Social wasps can be distinguished from solitary wasps by the pattern of their veins on the wings.
Wasps have two pairs of wings, which are linked by hooks. The wing beat of a wasp varies between 117 and 247 beats per second. It can be different in cases when a wasp sees danger and uses her wings as a signaling tool to alarm other wasps. This alarm signal stimulates other wasps to defend the nest.
Do wasps lose their wings?
Wasps do not lose their wings naturally, however, there are some cases where a wasp doesn’t use its wings a lot.
This case is about the queen wasp because it will rarely leave the nest between late spring through summer, as it’s when the queen produces eggs and the colony grows. The queen mostly remains in her nest laying eggs and other female workers take care of her.
Wasps need to have wings to survive.
Their wings fold down over their backs. As mentioned above wasps move their wing quite fast, which generates wind to lift their bodies into the air. They are strong flyers as they can deal with fans and chase their threats for a long distance. Their strong flying abilities and stings make them dangerous to all prey.
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What happens to a wingless wasp?
If a wasp damages or loses its wings, then it dies quickly due to dehydration and starvation. It can’t fully move to support itself, and the colony will not help. The wasp also becomes easy prey for other insects or animals, so the chances of surviving are very low.
However, there are some wasp species that are wingless. For example, the Mutillidae is a family of wasps with wingless female wasps. They look more like ants and usually catch their prey just by running after it. They are able to defend themselves and have no need for wings.
The female wingless wasps are the ones that can sting and the male wasps are the ones who fly and find the food. However, not all wingless wasps have stings, which can be dangerous for some animals. Some species of wingless wasps are tiny, so they are not treated as a threat to any large animal.
There are also some insects that have lost their wings because they are not needed in their particular habitat. Sometimes the flight is not desirable, for example for insects that live in very cold climates or on islands. The process of growing wings takes a lot of energy and not every insect needs wings.
Can wasps regrow wings?
Wasps don’t have the ability to regrow their wings. The wings develop only once. They start to grow during the period when a wasp is in larval form and develop more in other stages. Actually, there is no insect that can regrow its wings.
Wasps do have a short life cycle and only live a few weeks (workers) up to one year (queen). The development of the wings happens only once during their life cycle. Losing its wings is fatal for many insects, including wasps.
