Thirty-seven-year-old Brett Smitheram from London has been named the new World Scrabble champion. He was behind until he scored 176 points for the word "braconid," a kind of parasitic wasp. Photo: AP.

A braconid is a parasitic wasp, and because Brett Smitheram knew the word and how to spell it, he's 7,000 euros richer and the World Scrabble Champion.

'Braconid', the term for a parasitic wasp, helps Brett Smirtheram score 176 points and win the World Scrabble Championship. (Video: Reuters) ...

Sunday’s winner of the World Scrabble Championship 2016 at the Grand Palais in Lille, France, gets 7,000 euros (about $7,818) in prize money.

Even compared to Swift’s 6-inch tall Lilliputians, the one-sixteenth- to five-eighths-inch-long braconid is miniscule, a speck of dust on the wing.

A braconid is a parasitic wasp, and because Brett Smitheram knew the word and how to spell it, he’s 7,000 euros richer and the World Scrabble Champion. Smitheram, 37, is a British recruitment ...

René Eisenbart/The OregonianA tomato hornworm covered by cocoons of the braconid wasp. If you see a hornworm with cocoons, leave it undisturbed to allow the wasps to emerge and increase the ...

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Braconid wasps play an important role in organic pest control. Braconids are beneficial insects that lay their eggs inside or on host insects and the maggot-like wasp larvae weaken the host pest.

British man wins World Scrabble Championship with obscure word for parasitic wasp The winning word was Braconid, scoring 176 points ...