Unnamed Bug Comic 12: Miss Me?

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Full title: Miss Me? Ok so this one was almost done for like a month and didn’t get finished until now (for some reason, considering it was almost done…) so that’s why the art style looks kinda weird. It was not supposed to look like this lol I swear I will try and get the art style more consistent again soon but it might take a while considering all these old comics I already started… So I think last comic I mentioned a character who was supposed to show up like a year ago, right? Well here she is: meet Cherrymutilla! Well, everyone just calls her Cherry. As seen here, she and Plumelle know each other. What do they have to do with each other? Well, they used to be together… but there was some drama… now they broke up. What was the drama? I’m not telling yet! And what kind of bug is Cherry? She’s a red velvet ant (Dasymutilla occidentalis)! Despite the name, they’re not ants but actually a type of wasp. Now I think Cherry’s “Aw come on, don’t look at me like I’m some kind parasite…” could be offensive to parasites, and considering she herself is a parasitoid, she should know better! So what’s the difference between a parasite and a parasitoid? Well, a parasite is just an organism that benefits at another organism’s expense. A parasitoid is a type of parasite that eventually kills its host. Red velvet ants actually take other wasp species as hosts, such as cicada killers. Wasps are the most diverse animals on the planet with the majority being parasitoid wasps, so just about every insect has their own type of parasitoid wasp that is specialized to parasitize that other insect. It gets to the point that some parasitoid wasps have their own parasitoid wasp, this is called hyperparasitism. Some parasitoid wasps even have their own parasitoid wasp that has their own parasitoid wasp! Do plume moths such as Plumelle have their own parasitoid wasps? They certainly do, but unfortunately I don’t know any specific wasp species specialized in plume moths, though lepidopterans (moths and butterflies) happen to be the most common hosts for parasitoid wasps, so I’m sure there are plenty. Also, if you’re wondering how parasites can even coexist with other species in a setting like this… I haven’t completely figured it out yet, sorry… I do have a few ideas, but this is already pretty long, so I’ll explain some other time (and hopefully have it figured out by then).