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When a Biology Student Gave Wasps Access to Colored Paper, They Made Rainbow Nests

Image Credit: Instagram

I, for one, am not someone who will be easily – or ever – convinced that wasps are in any way lovable.

That said, they can built some pretty-looking nests if you give them some colorful tools!

https://www.instagram.com/p/B63sJ8CAGD0/

University of Florence biology major Mattia Menchetti came up with the idea: he would slowly fed a captive colony of paper wasps different colors of paper over time.

The result? Nests that look more like trippy kaleidoscopes than the houses of terror that they actually are.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BD_2SDmvnBp/

It’s not the first time scientists have realized that the insect world can get more colorful than nature intended – sometimes, with no intentional human intervention at all. In 2012, a group of French beekeepers discovered that their bees were creating green and blue honey. The culprit?

Bits of M&M shells they had found at a nearby waste processing plant.

https://twitter.com/41Strange/status/1147991845986656257

Honestly more depressing than magical, if you ask me. Which no one did, I realize.

These pictures still 100% give me the heebies, even if they’re technically pretty.

What about you? Are you a wasp fan now?

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bf1BkWalJg7/

If so, please explain yourself or submit for voluntary psychological hold.

It’s for your own good, I swear.

Check out Mattia’s Twitter or Facebook for more pics like these, or to see what amazing thing this young scientists comes up with next!