Re: Bee Coloration - conspicuous warning or camouflage?

"Pat Kiewicz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> In my garden, yellow jackets forage for caterpillars on greens, and beetle larvae on
> mature asparagus fronds where they absolutely don't blend into the background.
>
> In the fall, they spend time chewing on my ripe raspberries, where they also
> stand out quite reliably.
>
> --
> Pat K.

Pat:

In a urban or suburban environment, the relationship between Yellowjackets
and their natural predators has most likely broken down, which is why people
have to resort to pesticides and the identification and removal of Yellowjacket
nest sites to control this insect's population. If there were an environment where
Yellowjacket numbers were being controlled naturally (via the insect's natural
predators) it would be interesting to observe whether those colonies that relied
on a food supply that provided the insects with a degree of protection by
camouflaging the insects' shape did better, in terms of the colony's survival
and reproduction, than those colonies that depended on a food source that
did not offer them any protection in terms of camouflage effects.

The  assumption here is that Yellowjackets do not discriminate in what they eat,
i.e. they don't deliberately select plants or fruits to eat based on how well their
own appearance blends in with the selected plant's  or fruit's color and
appearance, but that Yellowjackets stand a better chance of survival
when they happen to choose a food source that affords them some protection
from being noticed.

As I stated in a previous post, I had observed that when Yellowjackets discovered
a food source such as a collection of rotting apples which camouflaged their
presence, they kept returning to this food source (over a period of several days)
until the food source  was exhausted.

Had these Yellowjackets chosen to feast on ripe raspberries, as they did in your
garden, and had the natural predators which controlled the Yellowjacket population
been present, then these Yellowjackets would have been noticed by the predator
and would have been eaten. (That's my "thesis" anyway, which is certainly open
to being disputed <grin>)


 --- Bill Angel
      Silver Spring, Maryland