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08/12/2021
https://www.facebook.com/259754044357933/posts/1673890712944252/
Polen? Flower Nectar? None of that. One species of bees developed a taste for meat, more specifically carcasses of animals. They are called vulture bees (Trigona hypogea). 🐝 🥩
This change was observed for the first time in 2019, when a group of American scientists traveled to the forests of Costa Rica. They hung pieces of chicken meat on trees and noticed that after feeding with this protein, they took some of it to feed the hive.
Usually, bees collect pollen to feed their offspring, but vulture bees feed their larvae with a meat based diet.
Researchers captured some of them to examine them and found out they have some microbes — also found on Vultures and Hyenas — that help them digest the meat.
One of the hypotheses to explain why these bees are eating meat is that the search for nectar is highly competitive in the area which made them start to change their diet.
The Research “Why Did the Bee Eat the Chicken? Symbiont Gain, Loss, and Retention in the Vulture Bee Microbiome” was published by the American Society for Microbiology.
