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Interesting. I'll admit this isn't my area, and as a hymenopterologist I'm really only an interested amateur in any case; I will say that I've never observed an

Interesting. I'll admit this isn't my area, and as a hymenopterologist I'm really only an interested amateur in any case; I will say that I've never observed any wasp to be obviously dismayed by my camera flashes, and only once even by my presence - a bald-faced yellowjacket who was surprised to find me inches away upon emerging from a flower where she'd been nectaring, and circled my head a few times before zipping off about her occasions. But then, on the other hand, I'm not really interfering with them, and certainly not attaching a semi-permanent tracker - the most you ever see in that direction with wasps is a dab of paint on the dorsal thorax, as with queen bee marking, which if perhaps not perfectly innocuous is still certainly much less intrusive than the devices typically applied to mammals and in this case at least to birds. Can you cite the claim that the subjects of tracking studies typically find the trackers innocuous?

aksss 5y ago
> hymenopterologist Had to look that one up. Wasn’t sure if it was a joke from high school or a real field. The latter, for those interested - bees, wasps, and such.
- throwanem 5y ago
  It's a specialization of entomology, yes. That said, and to the point of your initial uncertainty, there has long been question over the presence of the "hymen-" radical in the family name Hymenoptera ("-ptera" meaning "winged", cf. Orthoptera "straight-winged", Hemiptera "half-winged", Lepidoptera "jewel-winged", etc., and also eg Chiroptera "hand-winged" for bats.) It's confidently understood to derive from the name of a Greek god of marriage, as does the name of a more widely known mammalian membrane, but no one is entirely certain why that radical was used here. It was previously thought that "hymeno-" referred to the membranous nature of the hymenopteran wing, but this doesn't make much sense given that all insect wings are membranous to some extent; a name in that sense would not differentiate the family, and thus be a relatively unlikely choice even on the part of a classical taxonomist. Currently the radical is understood instead to refer to the fashion in which hymenopterans' rear wings can lock into the forewings via a series of small hooks, in order to both support the mechanics of flight and allow bees and wasps to narrowly fold their wings along their backs where they do not obstruct entry into narrow spaces such as brood burrows and nest cells. This feature, which is distinctive to hymenopterans, could very reasonably have inspired the family name Hymenoptera, meaning "married-winged".
  - throwanem 5y ago
    correction: Lepidoptera is correctly "scale-winged". What I get for relying on memory rather than checking the etymology for the name of a family I rarely study...
    - aksss 5y ago
      Interesting. My roots are weak, but I saw "opt" and thought of "opto" not breaking it into ptera. Thanks for the information.
throwanem 5y ago
Somewhat embarrassingly, I was wrong about wasps and radio tracking! Some sparrow wasps (V. mandarinia) were tagged with transmitters as a means of locating a nest in Washington state about a year and a half ago, the first nest known to exist in the US. (1) Granted, with the objective of locating the nest being in this case its extirpation, that the tracker should be innocuous would be of secondary concern in this case. However, rendering the tracked wasps unable to fly would somewhat defeat the purpose, so one assumes it was designed not to interfere too much with their activities - a difficulty no doubt ameliorated by these wasps' unmatched size and strength. I'd like to read the paper undoubtedly since published by the entomologists involved, but haven't the time just now to find it. But speaking of finding things - given how late in the year that nest was located, it's very probable that any mated gynes to whom it had given rise had dispersed from the nest and possibly entered diapause before the nest was found. Between that and the sparrow wasp's relatively reclusive nesting habit, while this was the first nest known to exist in the US, it's almost certain not to be the last. (1) https://www.geekwire.com/2020/using-radio-trackers-scientists-finally-locate-murder-hornet-nest-washington-state/amp/ https://www.geekwire.com/2020/using-radio-trackers-scientist...

aksss 5y ago

> hymenopterologist Had to look that one up. Wasn’t sure if it was a joke from high school or a real field. The latter, for those interested - bees, wasps, and such.

throwanem 5y ago
It's a specialization of entomology, yes. That said, and to the point of your initial uncertainty, there has long been question over the presence of the "hymen-" radical in the family name Hymenoptera ("-ptera" meaning "winged", cf. Orthoptera "straight-winged", Hemiptera "half-winged", Lepidoptera "jewel-winged", etc., and also eg Chiroptera "hand-winged" for bats.) It's confidently understood to derive from the name of a Greek god of marriage, as does the name of a more widely known mammalian membrane, but no one is entirely certain why that radical was used here. It was previously thought that "hymeno-" referred to the membranous nature of the hymenopteran wing, but this doesn't make much sense given that all insect wings are membranous to some extent; a name in that sense would not differentiate the family, and thus be a relatively unlikely choice even on the part of a classical taxonomist. Currently the radical is understood instead to refer to the fashion in which hymenopterans' rear wings can lock into the forewings via a series of small hooks, in order to both support the mechanics of flight and allow bees and wasps to narrowly fold their wings along their backs where they do not obstruct entry into narrow spaces such as brood burrows and nest cells. This feature, which is distinctive to hymenopterans, could very reasonably have inspired the family name Hymenoptera, meaning "married-winged".
- throwanem 5y ago
  correction: Lepidoptera is correctly "scale-winged". What I get for relying on memory rather than checking the etymology for the name of a family I rarely study...
  - aksss 5y ago
    Interesting. My roots are weak, but I saw "opt" and thought of "opto" not breaking it into ptera. Thanks for the information.

throwanem 5y ago

Somewhat embarrassingly, I was wrong about wasps and radio tracking! Some sparrow wasps (V. mandarinia) were tagged with transmitters as a means of locating a nest in Washington state about a year and a half ago, the first nest known to exist in the US. (1) Granted, with the objective of locating the nest being in this case its extirpation, that the tracker should be innocuous would be of secondary concern in this case. However, rendering the tracked wasps unable to fly would somewhat defeat the purpose, so one assumes it was designed not to interfere too much with their activities - a difficulty no doubt ameliorated by these wasps' unmatched size and strength. I'd like to read the paper undoubtedly since published by the entomologists involved, but haven't the time just now to find it. But speaking of finding things - given how late in the year that nest was located, it's very probable that any mated gynes to whom it had given rise had dispersed from the nest and possibly entered diapause before the nest was found. Between that and the sparrow wasp's relatively reclusive nesting habit, while this was the first nest known to exist in the US, it's almost certain not to be the last. (1) https://www.geekwire.com/2020/using-radio-trackers-scientists-finally-locate-murder-hornet-nest-washington-state/amp/ https://www.geekwire.com/2020/using-radio-trackers-scientist...