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. 2014 Feb 26;9(2):e89683. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0089683

Figure 4. The wasp uses mechanosensory inputs to identify the cockroach’s brain.

Figure 4

(A) Mean (±SD) stinging duration after different surgical manipulations on the cockroach’s brain prior to a wasp’s sting (see text for details). Control (n = 30); ‘Brainless’ (n = 19); Brain replaced with agarose pellets: 0.25% (n = 12), 0.5% (n = 9), 0.75% (n = 8), 1% (n = 6), 2.5% (n = 12); brain injected with TTX (n = 6); Brain homogenized (n = 5). **p<0.01, ***p<0.001 (Kruskal-Wallis One-Way ANOVA on Ranks versus the control group). (B) Number of red pixels, indicative of amount of injected venom in hard (2.5%, n = 10) and soft (0.5%, n = 9) agarose pellets following a wasp’s sting. Inserts are representative photomicrographs of one hard (left) and one soft (right) agarose pellet extracted from cockroach heads immediately after the sting (Scale bars = 0.1 mm). ***p<0.001 (t-test).