You can’t fool a wasp with a false show of bravado
August 21st, 2010 - 5:51 pm ICT by ANINormal
0
London, Aug 21 (ANI):
Wasps hate cheating rivals - rivals that either ‘look’ strong but can’t fight
or the ones that really are tough but don’t look the part.
According to New
Scientist, Elizabeth Tibbetts of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and
colleagues used paint to make weaker wasps look more fearsome, and then pitted
them against a rival they had never met before.
Wasps that have more
fragmented patterns are considered tougher.
The rivals gave the
cheaters more of a pounding than they gave undisguised wasps, with more
incidents of intense aggression, such as biting and mounting.
In a contrasting
experiment, the team used hormones to artificially enhance the fighting prowess
of weak wasps, making them stronger than their faces indicated. Here too,
despite their boosted powers, their rivals refused to submit to them.
The results show that
wasps with any kind of mismatch between facial pattern and behaviour get
punished by their peers, says Tibbetts, which explains why they haven’t evolved
a strategy of lying and cheating to get to the top.
The study is published in
the journal Current Biology. (ANI)
- Wasps with more spots 'tend to be more ferocious' - Aug 21, 2010
- Scientists show how to spot an angry wasp - Aug 20, 2010
- Paper wasps have flair for recalling faces - Dec 04, 2011
- Standing out in crowd is beneficial - Oct 16, 2009
- Standing out in crowd better than blending in, claims wasps study - Oct 16, 2009
- Fossilized fig wasp hasn't changed for over 34 million years - Jun 16, 2010
- Now, a software for cops to find criminals easily - Mar 05, 2011
- Matching sketches with criminal's mug shots now faster - Mar 04, 2011
- Social status in paper wasps is established early in life - May 20, 2010
- How prehistoric sabretoothed cats coped with their oversized teeth - Feb 26, 2011
- Wily wasps dump foraging ants far from food sources - Mar 31, 2011
- Swarms of flying ants stage annual mating ritual in Scotland - Jul 22, 2010
- Pet dogs not that harmless for kids - Nov 10, 2010
- Ex-mistress Michelle McGee urges Jesse James' fiancee to 'run for her life' - Jan 26, 2011
- Wasps sting tourists in Bodh Gaya - Mar 23, 2012
Tags: aggression, ann arbor, bravado, cheaters, colleagues, current biology, elizabeth tibbetts, faces, hormones, london, mismatch, new scientist, peers, prowess, rivals, university of michigan, wasp, wasps