Sitting around? (Chomp!) Back to work!
By Susan Milius
When a wasp bites nestmates, is it sending a message that translates roughly as “Stop goofing around and do some work”?
That possibility occurred to Sean O’Donnell at the University of Washington in Seattle when he studied one of the so-called eusocial wasps, Polybia occidentalis. This tropical species builds colonies of several hundred wasps that share life’s tasks much as bees do. As they age, the female worker wasps switch jobs, starting as indoor nursemaids and ending up as food gatherers.