Entomology news in mass media

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05.08.2015 22:58, Hierophis

I do not believe. The behavior of vespins is an order of magnitude more complex than the behavior of eumenins (take at least a few types of rather complex intra-family communication, a much more complex nest architecture), so the brain must be appropriate. It may be smaller in size, but it is more advanced in its design.

What makes it harder, megamind? )))
A single wasp must complete its entire life cycle on its own, while individual social insects lose their individual autonomy as sociality develops.
If polistes or germanics can still single-handedly create a nest, and feed the first individuals, and then only a small percentage of individuals, then honeybees, and the like, can not live without a society. Thus, the more developed social behavior, the less important is the individuality, the ability to think, and in general the importance for society of each individual member, respectively. you don't need to be reasonable - just know yourself live according to the program(from zomboyashchik))))

06.08.2015 1:50, ИНО

Well, I've known for a long time that you've adopted the latter. Still, strain your remaining thinking skills and see the colossal chasm that separates Vespula's nest from that of the same Catamenes in terms of its complexity. And also how much more "convolutions" you need to have in order to transmit sometimes quite complex information within the family and perceive it, to establish a hierarchy and adhere to it, rather than just to find a once-in-a-lifetime sexual partner, mate and leave forever. And all this is inherent in each individual, regardless of the rest. The same queen vespula independently lays a nest, not anyhow, but according to all the canons of architecture inherent in this species, it hunts itself, feeds the larvae itself, that is, it does all the same things that the female catamenes does, plus a lot more. I agree, the honey bee is different, where the uterus does nothing but lay eggs. It is likely that her brain is also weak compared to a working bee (even, like, I met such data). But a worker bee should have a more powerful brain than, say, an osmium. After all, it does all the same things as osmium (except for oviposition. although this can happen if the uterus disappears), plus all sorts of dancing, honey harvesting, swarming, etc. But that article didn't mention bees.

06.08.2015 11:43, ИНО

Regarding the alleged brain degradation of social insects, a good analogy came to mind: the genome of unicellular and multicellular organisms. According to the flawed logic of Roma and the authors of the article, it should have been smaller in multicellular cells.

LED lighting reduces the defenses of moths
http://sci-dig.ru/biology/svetodiodnoe-osv...hnyih-babochek/

If the original study had exactly the design described in the notes, it is methodologically incorrect - there is no control group of butterflies that would not be illuminated with LEDs, but would be allowed to listen to a recording of bat calls. Then it would be possible to compare this 24% with a certain "natural" value (with a confidence interval, of course). However, how to collect in one place a similar group of butterflies of the same species composition without light, and even track their reaction to the "mouse squeak" in the dark-that's the question. But without this, it turns out some abstract number that does not prove anything, such as the average temperature for a hospital. Still, I would like to hope that the original study was competent, just the correspondent who told about it is so incompetent. But I'm too lazy to search for and translate the original article.

This post was edited by ENO-06.08.2015 11: 46