Abstract
![Figure][1] Courtship can be a complex ritual, and when parasitic wasps get together, they stroke each other's antennae; which made Ferdinando Bin from the University of Perugia, Italy, wonder whether the males' antennae were more than simply sensory organs. Were they communicating vital sex
Highlights
Inside JEB is a twice monthly feature, which highlights the key developments in the Journal of Experimental Biology
What happens when a nest is under attack? Claudia Bruschini explains that as soon as a guard wasp stings an attacker, the venom releases an alarm-signalling odour picked up by the workers before they swarm to the colony’s defence
The team measured the size of worker and queen wasp venom sacs, and found that they were essentially the same size
Summary
Every wasp knows its place in society: queens lay eggs; workers toil. But what happens when a nest is under attack? Claudia Bruschini explains that as soon as a guard wasp stings an attacker, the venom releases an alarm-signalling odour picked up by the workers before they swarm to the colony’s defence. Knowing that the wasps only reacted to alarm signals coupled with a visual stimulus, the team rigged up a black neoprene disc in front of the nest for the wasps to focus their attack on. They set the disc oscillating, released a drop of venom behind the nest and waited to see how the insects responded. Of the 16 eggs coated in Vaseline, 11 of the impostors were accepted by the nesting parents, while five were rejected; most of the interloper blackcap eggs were visually indistinguishable from the nesting parents’ own eggs and were accepted as belonging to the brood It was a different matter for the birds sitting on UV-blockcoated impostors.
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