What: The art of "Sexual Deception" (Sex and Lies)
Where?: Nahal Aviya, Israel
There once lived a wise king in Israel named Solomon and he said
"Do not lust in your heart after her beauty
or let her captivate you with her eyes.
For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey,
and her speech is smoother than oil;
but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword….
Another man’s wife can prey on your very life"
Are you wondering why am I saying this now?
Read the fascinating story of bees and beetles
Imagine this:
You go on a first date with someone whose perfume drives you wild.
Then the time comes
You lean in for that first kiss, that memorable first kiss
Heart races
Heart trembles
Heart stops
So close, you realize who your suitor actually is
Nothing more than a writhing mass of parasitic blister beetle larvae…!
You run away
Relieved you escaped unscathed
Or did you?
Unaware were you
Unaware of the fate you carry
Not your own fate
But the fate of another
That is the plight of this bee.
Unfortunate for this bee, the blister beetle larvae (triungulins) have evolved the ability to create chemicals that make them smell like a female bee. The larvae even boost the profile of their scent by crawling up a strand of grass and forming a female bee-shaped ball to lure the male bees. When the male bee gets lured and attempts to mate with this decoy, the triungulins latch onto him with their hook-like claws! Eventually, in disappointment, the male bee buzzes off in search of another, unaware of the fate it carries. When the male finds the next real female bee and engages in copulation, the larvae move from the male to the female bee. After copulation, the larvae remain attached to the female bee until she lays eggs. At that point, the larvae release themselves from the female and make their way into her nest—and once there, they consume the eggs she has laid and the food she has gathered for her offspring.
Documented and Photographed in Israel by Alfred Daniel J (during a field trip for the collection of potter wasps with Prof. Michal Segoli and Tamir Rozenberg)
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