Bald-faced hornet to laying eggs while the workers take over all other necessary housekeeping tasks. At some point, sometime before the midpoint of colony life, the colony will begin to invest energy in producing reproductives as well. This marks the transition into the reproductive stage. There is an extensive time period where both workers and reproductives are raised. Production of both castes limits the size of the work force. However, an early switching time is highly adaptive for social wasp colonies in limiting the risk of total loss. In a sampling of 50 colonies taken in Maryland in 1977, workers were produced
Bare-faced bulbul Bare-faced bulbul The bare-faced bulbul ("Nok hualon") is a member of the bulbul family of passerine birds. It was newly described from central Laos in 2009. It is one of the very few Asian songbirds with a bald (featherless) face and is the first new species of bulbul to be described from Asia in almost a century. The species epithet "hualon" is from the Lao word for "bald-headed". A 2018 molecular phylogenetic study of the bulbuls suggested that the species does not fit in the clade containing the core "Pycnonotus" and stood apart suggesting its placement in a new genus