The World of Minibeasts

The ? Owlet - The Moth

In general, an embryo starts to exist when an egg starts to split: the first split produces two cells, the second split four,  from the third split eight cells come out and so forth. All cells remain together to form the embryo. The larger the number of splits, the more the cells specialize in terms of function, in order to form tissues and organs. This is how an embryo grows. 

In case of polyembryony, a cell splits and the two cells separate. Only after several splits of that kind, a cell remains together with its secluded half to form an embryo. These different kinds of cell splitting have taken place after the Litomastix mother had placed her eggs into to caterpillar.

There is no final answer to the question, how many eggs were laid by the Litomastix female. They were at least two, since José could identify the two different genders. At the same time, she did not lay 1.600 eggs - this would have been too much of body substrate to give away for a little insect like a (?chalcididae). 

Photograph by Jose Verkest, text by Maria Pfeifer