Imagine a predator that doesn’t just kill its prey, but performs a high-stakes “brain surgery” to turn it into a willing servant. Meet the jewel wasp (Ampulex compressa), a shimmering, emerald-hued ...

Some wasps are unsettling, and then there are species so extreme that even the scientists who study them reach for words like “horror,” “vampire,” and “nightmare.” These insects combine outsized ...