• AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    can sting more than once

    They have barbed stingers. Their stinger rips the bottom part of their abdomen off when they try to retract it. They don’t live through that.

    • Opisek@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Do you know why that would be a positive evolutionary trait? Clearly, if they try to retract it, at some point in the history they must have been able to do so.

      • bouh@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        It makes it more dangerous : the sting is attach to the venom bag, so the venom bag gets to empty itself whole if it stays. Evolution would have chosen the survival of the hive, not the survival of the bee.

        One thing is weird though : you can extract the sting of a wasp with a pincer. The wasp will live through it. Why do the bee dies when it loses it’s sting and not the wasp?