Natures wonders: vampire bees (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, December 09, 2021, 20:24 (869 days ago) @ David Turell

Eat rotting flesh as well as visiting flowers:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/vulture-bees-gut-bacteria-eat-rotting-flesh-sick?ut...

"Mention foraging bees and most people will picture insects flitting from flower to flower in search of nectar. But in the jungles of Central and South America, “vulture bees” have developed a taste for decaying flesh.

"They are “the weirdos of the bee world,” says insect biologist Jessica Maccaro of the University of California, Riverside. Most bees are vegetarian.

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"Vulture bees (Trigona spp.) have a lot more acid-producing gut bacteria than their vegetarian counterparts do, Maccaro and colleagues report November 23 in mBio. And those bacteria are the same types that protect carrion feeders such as vultures and hyenas from getting sick on rotting meat.

"Strictly meat-eating bees had between 30 percent and 35 percent more acid-producing gut bacteria than strictly vegetarian bees and the ones that sometimes eat meat, the team found. Some types of these microbes showed up only in the solely carnivorous bees.

"Similar acid-producing bacteria in the guts of vultures and hyenas keep toxin-producing microbes in rotting meat from making the animals sick. The microbes probably do the same for the meat-eating bees, the team says.

"The health benefit extends beyond individual bees, says David Roubik, an evolutionary ecologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Balboa, Panama, who was not involved in the work. Vulture bees regurgitate some of the meat they consume, storing it in their nests where it serves as food for young bees. Some of the acid-loving gut bacteria end up in this food reserve, Roubik says. “Otherwise, destructive bacteria would ruin the food and release enough toxins to kill the colony.”

"In the end, Maccaro says, it’s hard to know which evolved first — the gut bacteria or the bees’ ability to eat meat. But the bees probably first turned to meat because there was so much competition for nectar for food, she suspects."

Comment: The explanation is easy and dhw will love it. We know from all studies, gut bacteria are opportunistic invaders. The are everywhere and will change their composition if the organism changes its diet. Shown in human gut studies all the time. The bees tried carrion and the helpful gut bugs obliged. Compare to Monarchs who must pass through a larval state, munching on Milkweed as a requirement the moment the lifecycle was established, to reach adulthood. No helpful gut bacteria here. Design required