Wasps get backpacks for study on animal altruism


This video says about itself:

Paper Wasps Get Tiny Backpacks for Study on Animal Altruism | National Geographic

22 March 2018

How do you track the location of thousands of wasps? A dab of super glue, and tiny radio transmitter backpacks.

New research shows wasps have their own way of communicating to each other about mealtimes — drumming on their gaster (or abdomen) to let each other know that there’s food nearby. For nearly five decades, researchers thought the gastral drumming was a signal of hunger. These findings are the first evidence that wasps have complex communication about food, just as ants, bees, termites, and other social insects: here.

6 thoughts on “Wasps get backpacks for study on animal altruism

  1. There is no way anyone can tell whether or not these backpacks are painful or cumbersome or in some way disadvantageous to the wasps. Like all invasive experiments on animals, this is unethical and wrong. It may sound cute to humans, but we’re not the ones being experimented on.

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    • The backpacks are very small and light compared to the wasps. Arctic terns can also fly from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back with data loggers a lot smaller and lighter than themselves.

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  2. Pingback: Wasps deserve love, like bees | Dear Kitty. Some blog

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