Bald-faced hornet hydrocarbons serve as a barrier to moisture diffusion and thus prevent dehydration in wasps. Cuticular hydrocarbon profiles vary over species and nests, and so cuticular hydrocarbons are a proposed mechanism for nest-mate recognition. Worker and queen cuticular lipids have similar components, but their distributions differ dramatically, implying that cuticular hydrocarbons also play a role in caste differentiation. The following lipid profiles were determined from specimens collected in the summer and early fall of northeastern Georgia in 1989. The dominant hydrocarbons recovered from the cuticles of workers were n-alkanes and methyl branched and dimethyl branched alkanes with a C27 or a
Bare-faced bulbul by quarrying and habitat degradation caused by overgrazing. 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