[Pollinator] Male carder bees wound native bees?

Peter Bernhardt bernhap2 at slu.edu
Wed May 13 06:12:33 PDT 2015


The following project page and video is from experiment.com.  If it was
featured on this list-serve previously then I missed it.

The project is concerned with the naturalization of the European
wool-carder bee in North America.  The video states that males of this
species set up territories in flowering patches and defend the territory by
attacking and stabbing (?) bees of other species with spines on their
abdomens.  Here is the site...

https://experiment.com/projects/bee-battles-are-our-native-bees-losing-the-fight-for-resources?s=discover

Male bees lack stings for obvious reasons but these males evolved a "sting"
much the same way a panda has evolved a thumb.  It's the old natural
selection fiddling with spare parts story publicized by the late S.J.
Gould.  Does anyone know of other life-histories of male bees with such
"pseudo stingers?"

Peter
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