Weird nature stories

Here's a couple of weird nature-themed stories I ran across.

Ever see honeybees that look like they're dancing? It seems the bees aren't just gettin' jiggy after all. The "waggle dance" appears to serve a function -- it's a kind of a flashing neon "Eat at Joe's" sign for bees. Who knew? And who knew there was such a thing as a "long-standing scientific controversy" over stuff like this?

If a honeybee worker discovers a good feeding site it is believed that she informs her nest mates through a dance that describes the distance and direction of the feeding site. This ‘dance language’ was first described by Karl von Frisch in the 1960s but his experiments also showed that bees that had attended the dance (recruits) took far longer to get to food than would be expected.

Then again, maybe they were just very, very white bees. Everyone knows white bees can't waggle very well. Good thing I'm not a bee! :)

Weird nature story #2....

You know news editors just love it when they get to run stories like this one, "Size matters, but bigger not always better." Here's the way it begins.

Mosquitofish play a mating game not so unlike the human one.

Males court females, trying to mate with any that will take them. Some females rush at the opportunity. Still others reject their suitors, ramming them in the head.

Now, a new study shows the females, time and again, are choosing mates with large reproductive organs over suitors not so well-endowed.

Come on, stories like this appeal to the third grader in us all. Why do you think I posted it? :) I do think the female mosquitofish are onto something when it comes to rejecting suitors by ramming them in the head, though. If more women took that approach, it would make bars much more interesting places to frequent.