this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago (8 children)

can sting more than once

They have barbed stingers. Their stinger rips the bottom part of their abdomen off when they try to retract it. They don't live through that.

[–] Opisek@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

Do you know why that would be a positive evolutionary trait? Clearly, if they try to retract it, at some point in the history they must have been able to do so.

[–] Muehe@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 month ago

Because bee stingers are mostly used against other insects. They don't get stuck in a chitin exoskeleton, only in the more flexible skin tissue of mammals. In insects the barbs instead pull out soft tissue from inside, thus making them more lethal (to the bees victim).

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