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13 April 2022 Apparent Recall of Past Homing Locations by Microbembex monodonta Say (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae) — An Observation
Matthew J. Cormons
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Abstract

The digger wasp Microbembex monodonta Say uses visual cues to home to her reproductive burrow. In my experiments I introduced a configuration of potential visual cues around the wasps' burrows and trained the wasps to follow it when shifted. I shifted the configuration each time the wasps were away on foraging flights. I exposed a single wasp to 5 shift-trials and recorded nest searching activity. She was misled upon every return, choosing initially to make an incipient digging (a scrape) where she had been last successful relative to the introduced configuration. During her search for her burrow she made multiple “scrapes” which included locations where she had been successful in previous shifts, as well as random scrapes. The scrapes made at locations where she had previously been successful suggest that she might have been able to recall several previous burrow locations, a behavior not previously reported in digger wasps.

Matthew J. Cormons "Apparent Recall of Past Homing Locations by Microbembex monodonta Say (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae) — An Observation," Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 123(4), 721-726, (13 April 2022). https://doi.org/10.4289/0013-8797.123.4.721
Published: 13 April 2022
KEYWORDS
digger wasp
distant cues
homing
local cues
memory
orientation
visual cues
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