• AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    can sting more than once

    They have barbed stingers. Their stinger rips the bottom part of their abdomen off when they try to retract it. They don’t live through that.

    • Opisek@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Do you know why that would be a positive evolutionary trait? Clearly, if they try to retract it, at some point in the history they must have been able to do so.

      • Muehe@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        Because bee stingers are mostly used against other insects. They don’t get stuck in a chitin exoskeleton, only in the more flexible skin tissue of mammals. In insects the barbs instead pull out soft tissue from inside, thus making them more lethal (to the bees victim).