SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY
Painted Paper Wasps Punish Phonies
from Scientific American
Before a fight, many animals size up their opponents--however briefly. Even a once-over can provide crucial information about whether to stay and risk injury or turn and flee. Some animals have evolved telltale signs or behaviors that allow them to efficiently judge one another's strength and avoid any unnecessarily costly battles. Deer assess their peers' antlers, and some birds and lizards intimidate one another with prominent patches of color.
But what evolutionary pressures prevent an animal from deceiving its peers by looking like a bully when it's really a pushover? A new study published August 19 in Current Biology suggests that paper wasps control for this kind of deception using social punishment. Wasps beat up phonies.
To help establish stable hierarchies of dominance, highly social paper wasps called Polistes dominulus rely on distinct facial markings--bold black tattoos on their bright yellow faces. Dominant wasps display more fragmented facial patterns than submissive wasps, and the insects use these markings to determine who should submit to whom.
Read more...
Science in the Media
Newspapers:
Magazines and Web Sites:
The Science-Media Intersection:
Subscribe to Our Content!
Visit our RSS Feeds page to choose among 13 customized feeds, or create a free My AmSci account to request an email notice whenever a specified author, department or discipline appears online.