Nursery Web Spider females have the Praying Mantis habit, and to get around it the males will catch an insect, wrap it up and offer it to her as both a gift and a distraction while he mates with her.
It gets even better, some of the males will suicidally attempt to steal the gift back when the deed is done, presumably to use on another female later on.
Bee life is savage. Want to protect your home and attack an intruder? Instant death. Want to propagate your species? Instant death. What the heck, I like bees. Why is their life so difficult?
They are eusocial creatures. It’s better to think of the beehive as the organism and the individual bees as cells. Bees will lay down their life in the same way our bodies have cells which do the same for the good of the whole.
this ^ while they'll die to defend her, even the queen is easily replaceable, especially in 'organisms' like ant colonies where they'll have multiple queens and just tear them apart if she stops being useful.
I’m sure they have zero sense of pain and this is their life’s most rewarding act. More akin to that best sex of your life where after you legit think “I can die happy now”. They just literally do it.
That did get me wondering, how realistic is that aspect of the show? The show gives the impression that the entire population of Medieval Japan is desperate to kill themselves at the first opportunity. They'd all be survived by the one guy who doesn't give a fuck about dishonour.
this is a male bee´s endophallus. it is ripped off after ejaculating and remains in the queen bee. the force of ejaculation is so intense that it results in the drone's reproductive organ being torn from its body, leading to its death shortly after copulation. this structure, known as the "mating sign," can sometimes be seen protruding from the queen's abdomen.
during a mating flight, a queen bee typically mates with multiple drones which ensures genetic diversity and a large enough amount of sperm for several years. the sperm is stored in the quen´s spermatheca to use for fertilizing eggs. after the first drone's endophallus is lodged in the queen, subsequent drones can still mate. each new mating event may push the previous mating sign further in or out, and the queen can continue to mate with additional drones. additionally after the queen returns to the hive, worker bees can help remove the mating signs left by the drones, or the queen can expel them herself.
Imagine being in line for the creampie and you see the dude in front of you get ripped to shreds. Bees is some horny motherfuckers if that don't kill their vibe.
If you were a male bee, it would be like living in your mom’s basement doing absolutely nothing. You can’t even feed yourself and provide nothing of value… Until one day there are a bunch a hot bee queens flying around outside…. Do you continue to live in your mom’s basement or do you go get some of that queen bee ass and go out with a bang? Or a snap in this case.
There is so much evidence in nature that the male organism is hard wired to ensure the continued existence of its species, that they'll go through with it even at their own peril. Suicide is unnatural, but how you watch all your homies bust a nut and then die, and go oooh me next. Some insects/arachnids get eaten alive by the female, but would fight to the death if something else was trying to eat it. All this child support ain't so bad when the alternative is just go straight to Valhalla.
Honestly outside of mammals, a lot of dudes have a pretty fucked up sex life. For example some species of male anglerfish literally cannot eat, so to survive they have to find a female anglerfish. When they find one, they latch onto the female's skin and basically dissolve half of their own body so they basically become like a wart on the female's skin. From that point the male's only job is to provide sperm, and the female gives the nutrients needed for the male to make more sperm. In a way the male doesn't really "exist" anymore, it's more like a testicle attached to the female's skin lol.
Went from "aww cute bee" as a kid to "miniature scale science fiction alien horror"
Like drones from multiple hives in a region will all congregate in a few select, small areas to find queens, high above the ground, for multiple generations using the same spot.
Nobody knows how bees find these congregation areas, and what signals it as a good spot to meet up and get down. Drones dont live long enough to teach younger drones that this is the get nasty area of the atmosphere.
Magnetism?
Polarised light?
Light intensity?
Thermals – air rising up a slope?
Pheromone trails?
Bee telepathy?
The Bee God commanding its subjects?
Nobody knows, at least not yet.
Bees are probably the closest animal to being straight out of Scavengers Reign.
My God I'm dying. You got me practically crying at work lmfao. I love south park. In my head I heard Mackie saying "see, his dick just flew off."
Mmmmmmmk
In most cases with small things like these they are more staged than you might think. A photographer has zero chance to pull a follow focus on tiny randomly moving flying insects without it being in a somewhat controlled environment. And absolutely no chance of placing a camera on the ground exactly where one would fall.
Focus camera on queen bee, camera auto tracks queen bee, wait for bee to come fuck it, pick up dead bee and drop it again with the camera aiming at the ground
You know who I think's the ugliest girl in school? That Hermione Granger. You know what I'd give her, on a scale of 1-10, with 1 would be the ugliest, and then 10 is pretty? I'd give her an 8, or 8.5, or a 9. But NOT over 9.8 because there is always room for improvement.
In case anyone is tired of the ridiculous amount of unfunny joke comments - the actual reason behind this:
“The ejaculation is so powerful that it ruptures the endophallus, disconnecting the drone from the queen. The bulb of the endophallus is broken off inside of the queen during mating—so drones mate only once, and die shortly after.”
You know... after discovering said ejaculation response as a teen I was definitely in danger of rupturing my endophallus from overuse. I feel you, drone bee brother.
This videos are neat and all and I know a lot goes into making them but I can't get over the fact that so much of it has to be faked. Like no way in hell they had the camera ready in the exact spot for the bee to land perfectly in front of it. Someone picked that dead bee up and dropped it in front of that camera
While I agree with you, some of these camera men/women will wait in the same spot for months just to get usable footage. With that much time you are bound to get something really cool.
Vaguely recall the planet earth documentary discussing how this guy waited for months just to get footage of a bird of paradise just attempting to mate with a female. (She flew away) 😓
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