Sand Bees: Hunting Masters During Reproduction

The order of Lepidoptera has a group of bees called the sand bees, and because of their elongated bellies, they are also called sand bees. Sand bees belong to the predatory group of beetles in the order Lepidoptera, and their nests are built in mud pits. Adult bees feed on nectar, while larvae feed on other insects. Sand bee mothers do a lot of hunting during their parenting, and they do their best to prepare food for their babies, with various techniques.

Yellow-winged locust sand bee hunting

Yellow-winged locust sand bee preys on direct-winged insects such as locusts. In areas where locusts are lacking, they happily hunt other insects, such as crickets, as food for their larvae. During August, these strong roland thistles stand tall in the sun, and the sand bees greedily feed on nectar and pollen from these thorn-stemmed branches.

However, this carefree life is very short, and by September they have to start digging and hunting. Yellow-winged locust sand bees build their nests on the slopes of roads, with the condition that the soil is easy to dig and there is plenty of sunlight. It dug a tunnel, with a horizontal entrance hall at the end. When the weather is bad, it hides in the entrance hall, and at night it also hides there. During the day, it sometimes takes a nap, and its expressive face and uninhibited big eyes occasionally peek out from the entrance. After the entrance, there is a turn, which slowly extends downwards to an oval-shaped honeycomb, connected to the passage by an entrance.

After digging a mud pit, the yellow-winged locust sand bee starts to hunt. After laying 1 egg and sealing the entrance of the first honeycomb, it does not abandon this nest. It dug a second honeycomb next to the first, stored food, laid eggs, and sealed the entrance. Then it dug a third honeycomb, sometimes a fourth. By this time, the yellow-winged locust sand bee had completely moved all the mud debris to the entrance, and erased all traces outside the nest. Dissection revealed that the sand bee laid a total of 30 eggs, so it needed to build 10 honeycomb. The construction of the nest was completed in September, and each honeycomb was usable for an average of 3 days, which was very rushed and hard-working.

Now a buzzing yellow-winged locust sand bee is returning from hunting, it stopped on a bush next to the house for a short distance, and was carrying a plump cricket that was several times its weight in its jaws. After a rest, it used its feet to hold the captive, and then jumped across the gap in front of the nest. The heavy insect fell on the face of the experimental entomologist who was still observing it. Although the man was still watching it, this order Lepidoptera didn't pay attention to him, but quickly grabbed the insect's whiskers. When it arrived at the honeycomb entrance, the sand bee quickly put down the prey and went to the bottom of the hole. After a few seconds, it poked its head out of the hole and shouted happily, and grabbed the cricket's whiskers. The prey quickly fell into the depths of the nest.

Why does the cricket hunter first check the house before carrying the prey into the nest? According to research, this is a self-defense behavior triggered by the vigilance against the invasion of parasitic organisms. Since the yellow-winged locust sand bee believes that it is necessary to go down into the nest to check, it must have some danger threatening it. The instincts of insects have countless forms, and at this moment, human reason cannot understand the countless wisdom of the yellow-winged locust sand bee.

Short sword three attacks

In order to observe the hunting behavior of yellow-winged locust sand bee using high-level techniques, researchers first cleverly took away its prey, and then used a live one to replace it.

Just as a hunter returned from hunting, he habitually put the cricket on the entrance of the house, and immediately went into the hole. The researchers quickly took this cricket, and immediately put a prepared cricket outside the entrance a short distance away. The hunter took this cricket that was too far away, and immediately went to catch it. The latter panicked and desperately escaped, and the sand bee rushed towards it. The two fighters fought fiercely, and the dust flew. After a while, the cricket fell to the ground, its legs scattered, and its big jaws randomly bit into the air. The hunter immediately dealt with its trophy, and it lay on the captive's belly in reverse, biting a piece of meat from the cricket's hind end with its big jaws. The middle pair of feet squeezed the cricket's ribs, and the hind feet stretched behind the cricket's face, and the sand bee's abdomen was bent at a 90-degree angle, and the empty space above the cricket's jaws was a biting concave surface. Just at this time, the sand bee's true killing began.

The sand bee hunter, before moving the prey into the nest, why did it first take precautions? This is because the sand bee took a series of preventive measures first, such as making the opponent lie down and unable to use its bouncing legs to escape; the sand bee's big jaws were tightly pressed by the researcher's forefeet, so that they could not use their offensive weapons; the cricket was also pushed far away by the researcher's hind leg, and although it kept roaring, it couldn't bite any part of the enemy. This was not enough, and the sand bee still needed to tightly squeeze the cricket's ribs so that it could not move, in order for the sand bee to be able to inject poison accurately, it needed to keep the cricket's abdomen from swaying freely. Perhaps this is to prevent it from being bitten by the poisonous liquid at the belly of the sand bee. Even if the Roman gladiator fought with his opponent in the arena, it might not be able to take more meticulously designed and ingenious means than this. The yellow-winged locust sand bee, compared to our anatomists, was already discovered many millennia ago, the sand bee has three movement centers in its insect body, which are very far apart. Therefore, using the needle to stab three times in a row is necessary, and it is also the most logical.

The yellow-winged locust sand bee's needle is not a means of showcasing strength, defending dignity, and seeking revenge; in order to seek revenge, it is not worth pulling out the short sword. However, the joy of the joy is too expensive, and the sand bee often has to pay for it with its life. The needle is a tool, which determines the future of the larvae, and also relates to the continuity of the race. When hunting, it must be a handy tool, which can quickly pierce the opponent's body, and can also quickly extract it to be used again. Obviously, the sharp and smooth blade is more suitable than the one with a hook, perhaps this is why those order Lepidoptera insects with needles don't have a peaceful personality, as if they realized that the poison in their honeycombs is the protection for their children, and they only use it for hunting this sacred occasion.

Therefore, whenever people are in a group of yellow-winged locust sand bees, they destroy their nests and steal their larvae and food, they have never been attacked and stung by them.

3

——