A recently discovered wasp species in eastern China packs dead ant bodies into the walls of its home, a tactic believed to keep predators away.
Now known as Deuteragenia ossarium, or the "bone-house wasp," the species is a spider-hunting wasp that scientists hadn't yet discovered, Live Science reported.
Michael Staab, a researcher at the University of Freiburg in Germany, was studying cavity-nesting wasps in eastern China with a team of scientists when they found outer cells in 73 of the nests. The team, which published the findings this week in PLOS ONE, said that the newly discovered cells were full of ant corpses, behind which were the new spider-hunting wasps.
"It was a totally unexpected discovery," Staab said.
The wasps, which live in the Gutianshan National Nature Reserve, a subtropical forest in the Yangtze River Basin, pile the ant bodies next to chambers that the females build to close nests after laying eggs.
Staab and his colleagues did not directly observe the wasps constructing these walls of ant corpses or killing any ants.
"However, due to the very good condition of all ant specimens in the ant chambers, we assume that the wasp must actively hunt the ants and not collect dead ants from the refuse piles of ant colonies," Staab told Live Science in an email.
The researchers have hypothesized that the smell from the ant bodies may serve to cover or protect the brood cells since many ants will fight to protect their nests.
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