Based on its clever use of pheromones, a completely new species of parasitic cuckoo wasp was discovered. Also known as the Emerald Bee, the Cuckoo Bee is one of our most beautiful insects, with a colorful appearance that sparkles like a jewel. However, they also cause a lot of headaches.
According to an insect researcher at the NTNU University Museum, we usually distinguish insects by their appearance, but the appearance of the cuckoo bee is too similar to make it difficult to distinguish. For more than 200 years, insect researchers have been working to classify cuckoo wasps into the right "species box" and determine which features are variations within a species and which are species-specific differences. Over the past 10 years, DNA barcodes have led to a major breakthrough in distinguishing between different species of rhododendrons by looking at differences in the genetic material of rhododendrons. But in this case, the two species of cuckoo wasps, their appearance is microscopic differences, the difference in DNA is also very small.
The next step is to look at each cuckoo wasp to find out if they belong to a different species, and the insects communicate with each other through pheromones, in other words, they have a chemical language. Very closely related species often have completely different languages to prevent them from interbreeding. The cuckoo wasp is an above-average insect with above-average language ability. They are parasites, that is, they behave like cuckoos, laying eggs in the nests of other bees and wasps. The larvae grow rapidly and hatch before the host's eggs. They then eat the eggs, larvae, and the food supplies arranged by the host in the nest.
When living as a parasite, it is important not to be detected, so the cuckoo wasp also learns the language of the host. By conducting a small language study, the researchers were able to find that the two almost identical cuckoo wasps did indeed belong to different species. They use different hosts, which means they also speak completely different languages.
When a new species is described, it must be given a name. A naming contest was announced among researchers working on cuckoo bees in Europe, and then a vote was cast on the proposals that came. As mentioned earlier, the new wasp found in Norway is very similar to another species called Chrysis brevitarsis, so the new species was named Chrysis parabrevitarsis, which means the species standing next to brevitarsis.
