Bees: Species living in Costa Rica has evolved an extra tooth for biting FLESH, ...

A bee species in Costa Rice appears to have a taste for flesh — having evolved an extra tooth for biting meat and a gut that more closely resembles those of vultures.

Researchers led from the University of California, Riverside compared the gut microbiota of various bee species, including these so-called 'vulture bees'.

They found that vulture bees — which they lured with pieces of raw chicken — have an unusually acidic gut and microbe species linked with the consumption of flesh.

According to the team, it is believed that vulture bees evolved their meat-eating diet in order to avoid intense competition for nectar and pollen. 

'These are the only bees in the world that have evolved to use food sources not produced by plants, which is a pretty remarkable change in dietary habits,' said paper author and University of California, Riverside entomologist Doug Yanega.

The vulture bees' diet is not the only way in which they are unusual, he added.

'Even though they can’t sting, they’re not all defenceless and many species are thoroughly unpleasant.

'They range from species that are genuinely innocuous to many that bite — to a few that produce blister-causing secretions in their jaws, causing the skin to erupt in painful sores.'

The guts of bumblebees, honeybees and stingless bees all have guts colonised by the same five core types of microbes.

'Unlike humans, whose guts change with every meal, most bee species have retained these same bacteria over roughly 80 million years of evolution,' said paper author and entomologist Jessica Maccaro, also of UC Riverside.

Given their radically different diet, the researchers wondered whether vulture bees would sport a different gut microbiome to their vegetarian counterparts.

To investigate, the team set up bait stations — comprising fresh pieces of raw chicken suspended from branches and smeared with petroleum jelly to deter ants

read more from dailymail.....