WORLD SCIENCE
WORLD SCIENCE
"Long Before It's In the Papers"
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Posted
July
21, 2004
Special to World
Science
Popular wisdom holds up social insects such as bees as models of selfless diligence. But researchers are learning such cooperation doesn't always come naturally -- it's enforced.
Tufts University researchers found, for instance, that queen paper wasps seem to discipline idle workers by taking what appears to be a threatening lunge at them. In response, the shirkers tend to get back on the job.
While it's unwise to casually attribute human-like motives to other animals, darting indeed "seems to be a means of regulating activity in the colony by disciplining wasps in specific behavior states," says Tufts researcher Annagiri Sumana.
The findings, published in the May issue of the research journal Naturwissenschaften, add to discoveries from the past several years that bees and other social insects run what have been described as little police states. For example, workers who by laying eggs challenge the queen's exclusive right to reproduce, quickly see the eggs destroyed.
—EJL
LINKS
Link to summary of wasp paper (fairly technical language) here
IMAGE CREDIT: Missouri Department of Conservation
WORLD SCIENCE
"Long
Before It's In the Papers"
