When it comes to accidental insect consumption, any 12-year-old boy can set you straight: The black do­ts in bananas are tarantula eggs, three centipedes crawl into your mouth every night while you sleep, and, of course, fig bars are full of baby wasps .

A simple internet search easily puts two of these grade-school urban legends to rest. However, an inquiry into the world of figs turns up stories that many people might find more than a little troubling: stories of fig plants teeming with insects and fruit having been split open to reveal hoards of small wasps.

While these stories may not be all that appetizing, there's no reason to swear off figs quite yet. Those little insects are fig wasps , and they play an essential role in the fig's life cycle as the plant's only pollinat

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