NEET 2025 Zoology Question 157 Solution

Addressing the popular myth vs biological reality of fig fruits:

• • Botanically, a fruit is a mature, ripened ovary (or inflorescence axis, syconus in *Ficus*) produced exclusively by angiosperm plants.
• • There is no scientific or botanical taxonomic category called a "non-vegetarian fruit".
• • While a female agaonid pollinator wasp may enter the ostiole of the inflorescence and die after oviposition/pollination, the plant secretes a proteolytic enzyme called ficin that completely digests the insect into amino acids and elemental nutrients absorbed by the developing fruit tissue.
• • Asserting that "Fig fruit is a non-vegetarian fruit" is biologically erroneous. Hence, Statement I is INCORRECT.

Scrutinizing the precise morphological stage of pollination and life cycle completion:

• • Pollination is strictly defined as the transfer of pollen grains from the anther to the receptive stigma of a flower.
• • In the genus *Ficus*, the pollinator wasp enters the specialized urn-shaped inflorescence (hypanthodium), which houses hundreds of tiny male and female flowers along its inner cavity wall.
• • The wasp pollinates the female flowers while searching for suitable egg-laying sites in the ovaries of gall flowers.
• • A fruit (*syconus*) is the post-fertilization developmental product. A fruit does not possess stigmas or ovules and CANNOT "get pollinated".
• • Therefore, claiming that the "fig fruit gets pollinated by fig wasp" is a glaring botanical contradiction. Hence, Statement II is INCORRECT.

Because both Statement I and Statement II contain fundamental factual and botanical errors, the correct verdict is that both statements are incorrect, matching Option (2).