Chicken baits are being used by vulture bees in Costa Rica. Credit: Quinn McFrederick.
A little-known species of tropical bee has evolved an extra tooth for biting flesh and a gut that is more similar to that of vultures than other bees.
bees don't eat meat The ability to stingless bee in the tropics has evolved due to intense competition.
"These bees are the only bees in the world that have evolved to use food sources not produced by plants, which is a pretty remarkable change in their diet," said Doug Yanega, an entomologist.
The guts of honeybees, bumblebees, and stingless bees are colonized by five core microbes. Most bee species have retained the same bacteria over 80 million years of evolution, according to Jessica Maccaro, a UCR entomology PhD student.
A group of scientists wondered if the vulture bees' gutbacteria differed from those of a typical vegetarian bee. The team that published the study in the American Society of Microbiologists' journal mBio said they differed dramatically.
The bees are known to reside in Costa Rica. They used fresh chicken suspended from branches and smeared with a liquid to deter ants.
The baits attracted vulture bees that feed on meat. stingless bees usually have baskets on their hind legs. The bees were feeding on the bait and using the same structures to collect it. "They had small chicken baskets," said McFrederick.
The team collected stingless bees that feed on both flowers and meat, and some that only feed on pollen. They found the most extreme changes among exclusive meat feeders.
Jessica Maccaro is a PhD student in entomology. Credit: Quinn McFrederick.
McFrederick said that the vulture bee's microbiome is enriched in acid-lovingbacteria, which are novelbacteria that their relatives don't have. "These are similar to the ones found in actual vultures, as well as the ones found in hyenas and other carrion-feeders, presumably to help protect them from pathogens that show up on carrion."
A lot of humans' food is made with the same type ofbacterium as the vulture bees. Carnobacterium is associated with flesh digestion.
It's crazy that a bee can eat dead people. Maccaro said that we could get sick from that because of all the germs on meat competing with each other.
The bees are unusual in a number of ways. Even though they can't sting, they're not all defenseless and many species are unpleasant. "They range from species that are innocuous to many that bite, to a few that produce blisters in their jaws, causing the skin to erupt in painful sores."
Their honey is still sweet and still usable, even though they feed on meat. The meat is kept in special chambers that are sealed off for two weeks before it can be opened.
The research team is hoping to learn more about the genomes of all the organisms in the bee's body.
They hope to learn more about the role that microbes play in bee health.
There are a lot of interesting discoveries in the weird things in the world. There's a lot of information about the outcomes of natural selection.
Laura L. Figueroa and her co-authors wrote Why Did the Bee Eat the Chicken? Symbiont Gain, Loss, and Retention in the Vulture Bee Microbiome, mBio, is a book. There is a book titled "10128/mBio.02317-21".
The journal has information about mBio.
When bees get a taste for dead things, meat-eating 'vulture bees' sport acidic guts.
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