Giant honeybees send waves rippling across their open nests by flipping their abdomens upward in coordination, a sight that approaching predators seem to shy away from. A new study is revealing details about what triggers the behavior, known as shimmering.
That shimmering is strongest when the bees are shown a dark object that moves against a light background under bright ambient light, researchers report in the September Journal of Experimental Biology. The experimental setup simulates animals such as hornets, one of the bees’ main predators, flying against the bright sky, and shows what visual cues set off the behavior, the researchers say.
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