Cave of Wonders: Where Prehistoric Bees Made Nests in the Bones of Animals Eaten by Colossal Owls – Good News Network

– credit, Lazaro Viñola López via SWNS Burrowing bees generally prefer to make their nests in the open, but some 20,000 years ago their ancestors lived in a cave where they used the bones of prey animals rather than soft soil. The groundbreaking discovery was made in a Caribbean cave that narrowly escaped being turned … Read more

Birds Start to Show Signs of Recovery After Bee-Harming Pesticide Ban in the EU

A chaffinch, one of the birds that recovered in the study – credit, 4028mdk09 CC 3.0. The first large-scale study to investigate the impact on bird populations from the 2018 European Union ban on a universal insecticide has determined that birds have recovered as much as 3% since 2018. Given that 57 species of birds … Read more

Bumblebees Have Learned to Read Simple Morse Code–an Ability Seen Only in Humans and Vertebrates

SWNS A new study is the first to show that an insect can differentiate between different durations of visual cues. In Morse code, a short duration flash or “dot” denotes a letter “E” and a long duration flash— or “dash”—means letter “T”. Until now, the ability to discriminate between “dot” and “dash” has been seen … Read more

Scientist Discovers New Bee Species with ‘Devil-like’ Horns–Names Her ‘Lucifer’

The Megachile lucifer – credit, Dr. Kit Prendergast She’s got devil-like horns, but she ain’t after your soul: she’s only looking for pollen. She’s Megachile lucifer, a new species of solitary bee identified in Western Australia’s Goldfields region by a team of scientists inspecting a rare wildflower habitat. She’s also the first new bee species added to … Read more