Explore
IN County of Hertfordshire of EnglandNomada RUFICORNIS) Hang a single grass blade, covered with morning dew. It rests in preparation for another day of a calculated cunning.
Nomadic bees are less known for their pollination roles and more for their cunning habits of brooding. All nomadic bees are brooding parasites – also known as Cuckoo bees – which means their evolutionary edge is based on the deception practiced: distort their eggs in the nests of other bees and let the hosts raise without knowing it and support them. This practical adaptation relieves the nomadic bees of parental responsibilities with high intensity of time of the construction of nests and the collection of food. Instead of spending their days preparing pollen and nectar stores for their young people, they can be found hiding in the nests of other bees, waiting for their chance to slip. At night, without the house coming back, they could perch on leaves or grass blades, sometimes anchor with their mandibles, as in the photo above, so they do not fall while they do not sleep.
Although cuckoo bees are clever cheaters, they have great weakness.
Most cuckoo bees, including the nomadic bees shown, target other solitary bees that lay their eggs in cavities or tunnels or multi-chamore crevices in the ground. When a host mother leaves her nest to eat, the bee at the cuckoo, hiding nearby, deposits her eggs. If the nest was previously sealed, the ordered closed the brooding room before the host returns. Then, when the cuckoo larvae emerge, they use their large mandibles to enjoy a first meal: their nest comrades. The impostors continue to benefit from the Pollen and Nectar stores of the host until they leave as well fed.
ADVERTISEMENT
Nautilus members benefit from experience without advertising. Connect or join now.
Male cuckoo bees do not live long enough to participate in these tricks, but scientists think that they can provide women with crucial coverage for their deceptions. During mating, male cuckoo bees release chemical compounds identical to pheromones issued by hosts, and researchers suspect that this transfer gives women the disguise they need to lay their unnoticed eggs. The perfume can also discourage other males from the twinning with coupled females.
With more than 850 species of cuckoo bees in the world, their approaches and adaptations can differ madly. Some species always parasitize the same host species, while others are less demanding. And while many prefer lonely hosts, some target social species. Cuckoo Vestal Bumblebee (Vestal bombus), for example, infiltrates the colonies of Bourdon, then kills and becomes the identity of the queen, ensuring that workers take care of her young people.
Although the bees cuckoo are clever cheaters, they have great weakness: they are only healthy as their hosts. When the bee populations decrease, the parasitic coucous that depend on it. And many bee populations are in difficulty, social species such as bumblebees with lonely kinds which represent at least 90% of all species of bees, but have benefited from research much less in their life cycles and their health. For the moment, Nomada RUFICORNIS The populations seem stable, but without more research and conservation measures protecting all the species of bees, the Crafty Cucou bee on our photo could one day wake up more than ever.
This history Originally appeared in biographicalAn independent magazine on nature and regeneration powered by California Academy of Sciences.
ADVERTISEMENT
Nautilus members benefit from experience without advertising. Connect or join now.
A naturalist for life, Andy Sands has been photographing fauna for over 25 years. His passion is British fauna, and he particularly likes to photograph birds in the song, the little mammals that we rarely see, as well as insects and other invertebrates, documenting their life cycles and their behaviors. Being a naturalist in experienced terrain allowed him to take intimate portraits of wild animals in a natural environment. In recent years, it has largely focused on the cover of mushrooms and slime molds.
