Bald-faced hornet viable brood in the comb fragment. The physical nature of cues mediating natal comb recognition is unknown, though some researchers propose distinct cuticular hydrocarbon profiles allow wasps to recognize nest mates. "D. maculata" is characterized by low paternity, worker reproduction and queen-worker conflict. Divergent genetic interests between workers and their queen cause intra-nest struggle for control, which disrupts social organization. Because of haplodiploidy, workers are unable to mate. However, their unfertilized eggs become males. Workers and their queens are most related to their own sons. Natural selection will therefore favor those workers who produce their own sons rather than rearing
Red-faced cormorant predators, though river otters may attempt to take them, as will corvids of various species, bald eagles and golden eagles. Gulls and corvids are common predators on eggs and chicks. Red-faced cormorant The red-faced cormorant, red-faced shag or violet shag ("Phalacrocorax urile") is a species of cormorant that is found in the far north of the Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea, from the eastern tip of Hokkaidō in Japan, via the Kuril Islands, the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands to the Alaska Peninsula and Gulf of Alaska. The red-faced cormorant is closely related to the