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Inspiring Science

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Inspiring Science

Tag Archives: Wasp

The Bone-house Wasp

07 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by sedeer in Arthropods, Hymenoptera, Insects

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Ant, bone, corpse, defense, nest, ossuary, Wasp

The newly discovered Bone-house wasp, Deuteragenia ossarium, builds a unique nest for its young. Unlike species which excavate their own nests, D. ossarium belongs to a group of nest-building wasps which use existing cavities, such as abandoned galleries of wood-boring beetles, as nest sites. Female wasps abandon their nests after sealing their brood within; they don’t care for their young or offer any protection beyond what the nest provides. The nest consists of a few brood-containing cells and an outer ‘vestibular’ cell — an entryway — which probably serves as a defensive barrier. The vestibule is usually empty, but researchers surveying nests in southeast China found a surprise in some of the entry halls — they were full of ant corpses. The team reared the brood from the nests and discovered a new wasp species, which they named after the striking ossuaries found in some parts of the world.
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Social wasps are specialists at recognizing faces

16 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by sedeer in Evolution, Hymenoptera, Insects, Mind

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

animals, biology, Cognition, evolution, face, Facial recognition system, Insecta, Paper wasp, Popular science, science, Wasp

A young female paper wasp (Image via Wikipedia)There’s lots of evidence that humans have a specialized mechanism for identifying and responding to faces; for example, people with a condition called prosopagnosia have difficulty recognizing faces but not other objects.  A few years ago, researchers showed that individual paper wasps of the species Polistes fuscatus recognize each other’s faces; the same team has now gone on to show that, like humans, P. fuscatus accomplishes this via a specialized mechanism for facial recognition rather than through general shape or pattern recognition.  This story is an excellent example of a  complex cognitive ability being exhibited by a creature with a relatively simple nervous system.

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