You may have heard of soldier ants - whose primary function is to guard their nest from intruders.
Now, scientists have discovered a new soldier, in the usually much less confrontational world of bees.
A University of Sussex team found that, in colonies of Jatai bees (Tetragonisca angustula), some insects are born soldiers.
The study, reported in the journal PNAS, is the first known example of a soldier bee.
While the caste system is common in ants and termites, with insects of different shapes and sizes assuming defined roles, the division of labour in bees is usually much more transient.
"Workers carry out different tasks at different ages," explained Prof Francis Ratnieks from the University of Sussex, who led the research team.
"They start out cleaning the nest, then feeding the larvae... then foraging and [eventually] guarding."
But while most bee guards take on their role for about a day, Jatai bee guards stand guard at the wax entrance tube to their nest for about a week, which, in the insect realm, is a relatively long career.
To find this out, the team observed the bees' nests on a farm in Fazenda Aretuzina, Brazil.
They used dots of paint to mark the bees that were hovering and perching close to the entrance, which revealed that these guards assumed that role for extended periods of time.
"We then took some of these [guard bees] back to the lab to examine them more closely," explained Prof Ratnieks.
From this examination, he and his colleagues realised that the bees were not just behaviourally different, they were also a different size and shape to the worker bees.
"The Jatai soldiers are 30% larger than worker bees," said Prof Ratnieks.
"They also have larger legs that they probably use for grappling."
Continued: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/16469386
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