are known as 'living jewels',
and here is potentially the best contender, photograph Thomas
Shahan/Flickr, it is the Euglossines,
aka Orchid Bees, which are often described as the world’s most flamboyant bee tribe,
and looking at their brilliant metallic coloration, it’s easy to see why, as well as their stunning metallic colors, they have two other things that make them stand apart from other bees, their incredibly long tongues, that can be twice the length of their bodies, the second is that to mate, they must become a perfumer!
over their three to five-month lifespan, male
of this bee tribe will concentrate most of their time and effort to collecting
various fragrances and create their own unique perfumes, which they then use to
impress females, male orchid bees use their forelegs to collect fragrances from
all kinds of surfaces, from orchids to vanilla pods and even scented pieces of
paper, and then store them in specially designed pouches on their hind legs.
When they are ready to mate, males gather in special display sites on tree
trunks where they release some of their stored scents while buzzing, flying out
from the tree, and then returning, interestingly, while males are often baited
by scientists with single synthetic compounds, female orchid bees are not
impressed by single fragrances, regardless of their intensity, but rather by
olfactory cocktails. If no female wants to mate with him, the male orchid bee
knows he just has to collect more scents and create a better perfume, the above video describes how all of this works, totally fascinating, grab a coffee and take a look.
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