The next meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club will be held on Tuesday, October 8 at 7:30 PM in in room 101 of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 26 Oxford Street in Cambridge. Shantanu Shukla will present a talk entitled “Queens, potential queens, and temporary workers in a tropical paper wasp species”.
Ropalidia marginata is a primitively eusocial wasp from southern and south-eastern Asia. Queens and the workers are morphologically similar, and reproductive castes are flexible. Queens are the sole egg layers in the colony, but workers retain the capacity to fully develop ovaries and become queens. What distinguishes this species is that the queen is not the dominant female, but is meek and docile. How then does the queen maintain her reproductive dominance? How does the colony regulate its maintenance and care? If workers are capable of becoming queens, why don’t they do so? Dr. Shukla will demonstrate how he has used behavioral experiments to elucidate the mysteries of these complex and fascinating social insects.
The meeting is free and open to the public. Snacks will be provided and you are also welcome to join us at 6:00 PM for an informal pre-meeting dinner at Cambridge Common. Image below from www.treknature.com.
