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Updated: May 11, 2025
Though the qualities of the delicacy escape me, I at least perceive that the Odynerus does not covet anything else. Once its jar is emptied, the larva is flung aside as worthless offal, a certain sign of a non-carnivorous appetite. Under these conditions, the persecutor of the Chrysomela ceases to surprise us by indulging in the crying abuse of a double diet.
When she perforates the rump of her victim the Odynerus does not touch the flesh, which is a diet absolutely contrary to her tastes; she confines herself to drinking the defensive liquid which the grub distils at the end of its intestine.
At first sight, this latter detail hardly deserves attention: is it not right to fill the pot before we put a lid on? The Osmia who owns a medium-sized reed is not at all of this opinion; and other plasterers share her views, as we shall see when we watch the Odynerus building her nest.
The procedure of Odynerus in opening the anal pouch is so far removed from the usual that we should not anticipate many imitators; it is a secondary detail, and impracticable with game of a different kind. But there may well be a certain amount of variety in the means of direct utilisation.
It is as plain as a pikestaff: outside my cages, when the opportunity offers, the Philanthus must also kill the Bee on her own account. The Odynerus asks nothing from the Chrysomela but a mere condiment, the aromatic juice of the rump; the other extracts from her victim an ample supplement to her victuals, the crop full of honey.
Well, with her slender form, her weakly frame, in which the most clear-seeing eye would seek in vain for a clue to the trade practised, the Alpine Odynerus, the game-lover, uses pitch in the same way as the stout and massive Resin-bee, the honey-lover. She even uses it better, for her mosaic of tiny pebbles is much prettier than the Bee's and no less solid.
So much is plain: in a state of freedom, when occasion offers, the Philanthus must kill on her own account as she does in captivity. The Odynerus asks nothing of the Chrysomela but a simple condiment, the aromatic juice of the anal pouch; the Philanthus demands a full diet, or at least a notable supplement thereto, in the form of the contents of the stomach.
It is one of the most remarkable cases of mimicry, since the beetle has the thorax and body densely hairy like the bee, and the legs are tufted in a manner most unusual in the order Coleoptera. Another Longicorn, Odontocera odyneroides, has the abdomen banded with yellow, and constricted at the base, and is altogether so exactly like a small common wasp of the genus Odynerus, that Mr.
I need not here remind the reader of the wasps' and bees' genius for building, the social and economic organization of the hive and the ant-hill, the spider's snares, the eumenes' nest and hanging egg, the odynerus' cell with its neat stacks of game, the sacred beetle's filthy but ingenius ball, the leafcutter's faultless disks, the brick-laying of the mason-bee, the three dagger-thrusts which the aphex administers to the three nerve-centres of the cricket, the lancet of the cerceris, who paralyses her victims without killing them and preserves them for an indefinite period as fresh meat, nor a thousand other features which it would be impossible to enumerate without recapitulating the whole of Henri Fabre's work and completely altering the proportions of the present essay.
For her this liquid is doubtless a beverage of delicious flavour, with which she relieves from time to time her staple diet of the honey distilled by flowers, some highly spiced condiment, appetiser or aperient, or perhaps who knows? a substitute for honey. Although the qualities of the liquid escape me, I see at least that Odynerus cares nothing for the rest.
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