SOMETIMES it seems that the lower down the ranks we are the harder we work, while our bosses laze about and reap the rewards. This is not just a human gripe, social insects exploit those lower down the pecking order, too. They have good reasons for this behaviour, though.
Jeremy Field and colleagues at University College London have found that the hairy-faced hover wasp, Liostenogaster flavolineata, has a hierarchical system in which the older wasps near the top work less than the lowly young wasps at the bottom.
This Malaysian species lives in groups of up to 10 females. The…
