A bit of shrubby St. John's wort
A bald faced hornet drinks from a flower on one of the milkweed plants in my garden. Despite what some people may tell you, hornets play an important role in the ecosystem, though not necessarily in the same way as bees. This is because bees collect nectar from in order to feed their larvae, and so naturally they spend a large amount of time going from flower to flower. As a result, bees are critically important pollinators.
Hornets, while they do visit flowers from time to time, are much more aggressive in gathering food for their younger siblings. They actively hunt down and kill other insects, such as caterpillars, crickets, and flies, which they then chew into tiny pieces, in much the same way that birds vomit into their hatchling’s mouths. In this way, hornets function as a sort of natural pest control, and while they probably won’t be winning any awards, they still hunt with enthusiasm.
Hornets are infamous for their aggressive behavior and painful stings, with bald faced hornets in particular being some of the most notorious. However, this girl was passive, and allowed me to get very close in order to take pictures. Hornets typically only act aggressive when they feel that their nest is in danger—though their definition of ‘danger’ typically means ‘if any large animal comes within a certain distance of the nest’. This behavior likely stems from the fact that the majority of animals instinctively steer clear of hornet nests. So, logically, any animal that comes close to said nest must therefore be doing so intentionally, and the hive must react accordingly. Bald faced hornets make their nests out of wood pulp and saliva, which gives their nests that iconic, papery look that all suburban homeowners dread. Like the dandelion, the hornet defies the wishes of the controlling and the wicked.
So sorry for the long delay! College is coming very soon, and I keep finding excuses to not post and instead run around in little circles tearing my hair out. I’ll work on that, I promise.
I can't unsee the cats, and bees don't have ears, unless they're supposed to be wings? Antennae? Dammit, those are cats.
Strange Bedfellows: these unprecedented photos show a leafcutter bee sharing its nest with a wolfspider
I stumbled across these photos while I was looking up information on leafcutter bees, and I just thought that this was too cool not to share. Captured by an amateur photographer named Laurence Sanders, the photos were taken in Queensland, Australia several years ago, and they quickly garnered the attention of both entomologists and arachnologists.
The leafcutter bee (Megachile macularis) can be seen fetching freshly-cut leaves, which she uses to line the inner walls of her nest. The wolfspider moves aside as the bee approaches, allowing her to enter the nest, and then she simply watches as the leaf is positioned along the inner wall.
Once the leaf is in position, they seem to inspect the nest together, sitting side-by-side in the entryway; the bee eventually flies off again to gather more leaves, while the wolfspider climbs back into the burrow.
The leafcutter bee seems completely at ease in the presence of the wolfspider, which is normally a voracious predator, and the wolfspider is equally unfazed by the fact that it shares its burrow with an enormous bee.
The photographer encountered this bizarre scene by accident, and he then captured a series of images over the course of about 2 days (these are just a few of the photos that were taken). During that 2-day period, the bee was seen entering the nest with pieces of foliage dozens of times, gradually constructing the walls and brood chambers of its nest, and the spider was clearly occupying the same burrow, but they did not exhibit any signs of aggression toward one another.
The photos have been examined by various entomologists and arachnologists, and those experts seem ubiquitously surprised by the behavior that the images depict. The curator of entomology at Victoria Museum, Dr. Ken Walker, noted that this may be the very first time that this behavior has ever been documented, while Dr. Robert Raven, an arachnid expert at the Queensland Museum, described it as a "bizarre" situation.
This arrangement is completely unheard of, and the images are a fascinating sight to behold.
Sources & More Info:
- Brisbane Times: The Odd Couple: keen eye spies bee and spider bedfellows in 'world-first'
- iNaturalist: Megachile macularis
Wild creatures I found yesterday
Hello I saw lots of bumble bees in the wild!!
and this is why baseball is the best sport (see also: these baseball sidequests)
