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
An Egyptian Hornet An Egyptian Hornet An Egyptian Hornet is a short story written by Algernon Blackwood. The story has first appeared in 1915 in "Reedy's Mirror". Rev. James Milligan goes for his morning bath. On his way to the bath he encounters an Egyptian Hornet in the hallway leading to the bathroom of the hotel he is staying in. At first the hornet frightens him. Then in his mind he describes the hornet in which, to his own disgust, he uses a more feminine erotic terminology. As he hesitates to enter the bathroom, an other guest in the hotel Mr. Mullins, is