Two types of mechanosensitive proprioceptor organ are present on the stinging apparatus of the honeybee: campaniform sensilla and mechanosensory hairplates. The campaniform sensilla are located on the surface of the tapering sting-shaft, which comprises an unpaired stylet and paired lancets. Each sensillum on the lancet differs from that on the stylet in terms of their topography and external m...

This paper reports a study of the task partitioning observed in the ponerine ant Ectatomma ruidum, where prey-foraging behaviour can be subdivided into two categories: stinging and transporting. Stingers kill live prey and transporters carry prey corpses back to the nest. Stinging and transporting behaviours are released by certain stimuli through response thresholds; the respective stimuli for...

Stinging events involving honey bees and wasps are rare; most deaths or clinically important incidents involve very few stings (< 10) and anaphylactic shock. However, mass stinging events can prove life-threatening via the toxic action of the venom when injected in large amounts. With the advent of the Africanized honey bee in the southwestern United States and its potential for further spread,...

Nettle et al. [1] explored the conditions under which it could be adaptive for humans to calibrate the development of life history traits (for example, reproductive timing) on the level of adversity experienced in early life. They concluded that external predictive adaptive responses (PARs)—in which early cues are employed to forecast the adult environment—can only evolve if environmental state...

Speculation about the relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic structures dates back at least a century. Sapir (1912) suggested that the infuence of non-linguistic factors (such as topography, climate, fora and fauna, etc) are most clearly refected in a language’s vocabulary, but Sapir also believed that they afect the phonological and grammatical systems of languages. It is clear tha...

This study was conducted to test for the effect of three stinging behaviors QTLs (sting-1, sting-2 and sting-3) on the expression of guarding and stinging behavior of individual honey bees, and to determine if results of defensive behavior QTLs found in studies with Africanized honey bees could be extended to other populations of bees. Samples of guards, stingers, foragers and nurse bees were t...

The parasitoid jewel wasp uses cockroaches as live food supply for its developing larva. To this end, the adult wasp stings a cockroach and injects venom directly inside its brain, turning the prey into a submissive 'zombie'. Here, we characterize the sensory arsenal on the wasp's stinger that enables the wasp to identify the brain target inside the cockroach's head. An electron microscopy stud...

Ten wild plants (cattail broad leaf shoots, chokecherries, beaked hazelnuts, lambsquarters, plains prickly pear, prairie turnips, stinging nettles, wild plums, raspberries, and rose hips) from three Native American reservations in North Dakota were analyzed to expand composition information of traditional foraged plants. Proximates, dietary fiber (DF), vitamins, minerals, carotenoids, and folat...

Background: Antioxidant activities of plant extracts are being studied to increase the shelf life of fish products. Some plants such as Urtica dioica L. (nettle) can be a good source of antioxidants. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of hydroalcoholic and water extracts of nettle leaf on the chemical properties of superchilled minced meat of the common kilka fish (Clupeone...