paramore1/animals

reproductive cycle of bees is fascinating - and complex. But here's the short story: a queen is selectively bred in a special "queen cell" in the hive and fed royal jelly by worker bees to induce her to become sexually mature.

A virgin queen that survives to adulthood without being killed by her rivals will take a mating flight with a dozen or so male drones (out of tens of thousands eligible bachelors in the colony). But don't call these drones lucky because during mating, their genitals explode and snap off inside the queen!

Strange as it is, this actually makes evolutionary sense: the snapped-off penis acts as a genital plug to prevent other drones from fertilizing the queen. But tell that to the dead drone whose penis just exploded.

[Note: this strategy is so successful that it is apparently employed by other species of animals, such as the male wasp spider]


Now Boys aren't you glad that you are not bees.heh

well, I cannot think of anything as disgusting as this, who on Earth would be caught with something this disturbing on their desk or in their home or office.

This saddens me.

Elephants may pay homage to the bones of dead relatives in their home ranges, a study of the creatures' responses to skulls and ivory suggests.

Humans apart, only a few animals show any interest in their own dead. Chimpanzees show prolonged and complex behaviours towards a dead social partner - but abandon them once the carcass starts decomposing. But lions, for example, might sniff or lick a dead member of its own species before proceeding to devour the body.

African elephants have been observed to become highly agitated when they come across the bodies of their own, and they have been seen to pay great attention to the skull and ivory of long-dead elephants.

Grace, of a family of elephants that researchers call the Virtues, touches the ailing Eleanor, the matriarch of the First Ladies family, who has fallen in Kenya's Samburu National Reserve on October 10, 2003. Grace will soon push Eleanor back to her feet, though the ailing elephant's resurgence will be short-lived.

Is this little bee the most amazing looking fellow.I just his good looks.

really beautiful nature shots...I love it!