Tropical Wasps Attack Intruder Insects with Unfamiliar Faces

It turns out that like humans, wasps don't like an unfamiliar face. Scientists have found that a species of tropical wasps can memorize the faces of members of their colony and then attack any individual with an unfamiliar face.

The researchers journeyed to the remote tropical forests of South East Asia to study the tiny wasp species called Liostenogaster flavolineata. These wasps create nests that are composed of one family of related individuals. These nests then are clustered together to create a kind of tiny, wasp city. Because they're clustered together, though, there's a high chance of intruders landing from a neighboring colony; these intruders then may steal resources or, theoretically, lay cuckoo eggs.

In this case, the researchers found that there's a way that wasps ward against intruders. There's a sophisticated interplay between sight and scent when it comes to recognizing family members versus intruders. The researchers found that when the wasps had only visual information, they were more likely to accidentally attack a friend and when they had only odors, they were more likely to mididentify an enemy as a friend. In other words, the wasps use both their sense of smell and sight to identify whether or not another wasp is an intruder.

"These wasps can use both face recognition and scent to determine whether another wasp is friend or foe," said David Baracchi, one of the new paper's authors, in a news release. "Unfortunately neither sight nor smell is infallible so they appear to not take any chances and attack anyone whose face they don't recognize."

The findings reveal a bit more about the remarkable behavior of these insects. In addition, it shows that the social interactions among them is far more complex than realized.

The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

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