Ancient bees collected pollen in two ways
14 Dec 2015 by Evoluted New Media
The ancestors of honeybees that lived 50 million years ago collected pollen in two ways.
The ancestors of honeybees that lived 50 million years ago collected pollen in two ways.
By studying 44-48 million years old bee specimens, palaeontologists led by the University of Bonn in Germany discovered that the collected pollen on the back of the ancient bee’s legs came mainly from evergreen bushes and the pollen near their heads, chests and abdomens came from completely different plants.
“For the first time, we are taking advantage of this circumstance in order to get a closer look at the pollen on the bees' bodies,” said Dr Torsten Wappler at the Steinmann Institute for Geology, Mineralogy and Palaeontology at the University of Bonn.
In the study, published in the journal Current Biology, the scientists looked at fossilised bees from two different locations: the Messel Pit and Eckfeld Maar in Germany and identified pollen from the bodies of 11 individuals from six bee species of the tribe Electrapini.
The researchers found pollen from a wide variety of nectar-producing flower types all across the bees' bodies – except, on their legs. They discovered that the pollen on the bees' hind legs came from a much narrower range of flower types, which the bees packed carefully into pollen baskets. The palaeontologists believe that pollen was eventually taken to feed young bees back at the hive.
“Pollen retrieved by the second, specialised mode represented flowers that were considerably more morphologically stereotyped than the first mode and originated from only three or four major taxa of plants,” said Dr Wappler.
Also, the researchers found that the bees from Eckfeld Maar were 44 million years old and the fosils from Messel Pit were 48 million years old. Nonetheless, they found that the ancient bees had very similar pollen patterns on their legs and bodies.
