Do figs really have dead wasps in them?

A photograph of a person holding an open fig.

If you love figs, you may have heard some unsettling lore about them: that every fig hides a wasp, because these insects need to crawl inside and die in order for the fruit to grow. But are there really wasps in the figs we eat, or is this just a myth?

The answer is somewhere in between. Wasps do play an essential role in the life cycle of many types of fig trees, but most figs from the supermarket are likely bug-free.