Wasp mothers display remarkable intelligence when it comes to feeding their young, according to a new study.
Digger wasps build a separate burrow for each of their eggs, initially stocking it with food. A few days later, they return to deliver more. What’s astonishing is their ability to remember the exact locations of up to nine individual nests, despite these being scattered among hundreds of similar nests created by other females.
Researchers from the University of Exeter uncovered these extraordinary abilities, calling them "remarkable mental feats."
The wasps were found to feed their larvae in age order, but they could adapt this schedule if a larva died. They even delayed feeding young that had already received a large initial meal evidence of flexible and advanced decision-making.
“Our findings suggest that the miniature brain of an insect is capable of remarkably sophisticated scheduling decisions,” said Professor Jeremy Field, who led the research.
“We often assume creatures this small can’t handle complex tasks. But these wasps can track where and when they’ve fed each offspring, and even what they’ve fed them, something that would challenge even human memory.”
The study focused on digger wasps living on heathland in Surrey, where they hunt caterpillars from heather plants. Despite nesting in bare sand among hundreds of other females, the wasps rarely made mistakes.
Out of 1,293 food deliveries recorded, only 1.5% were mistakenly taken to the wrong nest.
.jpg "Yam prices surge in Dambai market amid harvest season")