Sell a close today, see this picture, what is your first reaction?
Image credit: Bernd Schöllhorn and Serge Berthier
This is... Hard-working bees work during the day (ban) tread (si) real (bu) real (huo) work, at night hi up bungee?
While hiking through the tropical forests of northern Vietnam, scientists accidentally spotted these "disco" hives — glowing green when illuminated by ultraviolet light (a line that looks like they're about to go blind).
What is that?! So dazzling!
Image credit: Phys
Even the well-informed professor had to say: So green?! （"We were very surprised to find such strongly fluorescent biomatter." ）
Scientists found this "disco" to be a real surprise. Originally, they were equipped with ultraviolet LED flashlights to find unknown fluorescent insects in the rainforest, and then they found this "honeycomb".
However, it is not the frightening wasp in the "poke honeycomb", but its relative, the nest of the paper wasp genus Of the wasp family Long-legged Wasp.
Paper Wasp
Image source: galapagos
As the name suggests, the nest of paper wasps is "paper paste", and the hives of social wasps are mostly made of wood fibers, which look like they are made of paper.
By giving paper bees different colored cardboards in stages, they can create such colored hives. Image credit: Colossal
Where the fluorescence is brightest, the paper vespa makes a "cocoon cap" of silk fibers and seals the bottom of the hexagonal hive to protect the growing larvae in the nest.
Of course, the hive is not always green. When exposed to white light, the hive appears bright white; under normal daylight, fluorescent green appears; and at night, under the illumination of ultraviolet flashlights, a bright and dangling green hive can be seen twenty meters away.
Different manifestations of the same hive under white light (left) and ultraviolet light (right). Image credit: Bernd Schöllhorn and Serge Berthier
Can't help but make up for it, in the forest at night, scientists saw a "big green lantern hanging high" in the distance... Hiss, a little flustered.
You~Good~Yay.)
The psychological endurance of scientists is not only strong, but also can study what it is, and even bring it back as a specimen. Therefore, the paper bees living in the "disco" also came back together to make specimens and dedicate themselves to scientific research.
The authors compared the hives of vietnamese paper bees with those of two species of long-legged wasp paper bees from different regions and found that the cocoon caps of all hives fluorescence. It is just that the intensity of fluorescence and the range of ultraviolet light when the luminescence is the brightest are different.
Good guys are still a chain store, I directly passionately promote: the bee brand chain fluorescent disco, the best choice for the night of the working bee!
Do these fluorescences have any special effects? Scientists have several ideas.
At dusk, these glowing hives may serve as a beacon of return for paper bees to fly back to the hive, or distinguish the nests of nearby colonies by fluorescence nuances when paper bees cannot distinguish their homes.
It is also possible that the fluorescent cocoon cap protects the paper bee larvae from harmful ultraviolet rays that disrupt the development of the larvae.
However, the researchers' favorite explanation is:
According to previous research results, the relative length of day and night has a great influence on the development of paper bee larvae. Therefore, glowing cocoon caps may affect the amount of light they receive as they grow.
There is one egg in each nest compartment in the paper hive
Image credit: San Antonio Express-News
This is also evidenced by their living environment, as these Vietnamese paper bees usually breed during the rainy season (June-August), when clouds block a lot of visible light, preventing them from reaching the hive, but still have a considerable amount of ultraviolet light that can penetrate the clouds.
Image credit: News Concerns
Researchers believe that
By allowing the cocoon cap to glow, it may increase the overall amount of time that paper bee larvae are exposed to light during development, affecting their growth and development.
Simply put, shine more light to help the little paper bees thrive. It turned out not to be the "disco" of adult paper bees, but the "glowing nursery box" of baby paper bees
Grow up on time
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Source | Live Science
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