Ruud Kleinpaste
Ruud Kleinpaste ponders the limits of acceptable behaviour in communal situations.
Etiquette for insects and spiders
social licence is a topic that’s been in the news a bit lately. Especially in the area of conservation and restoration. Think 1080 and genetic editing of pest species, such as mice and rats.
How do New Zealanders feel about using some of these techniques when we are trying to get rid of pests from our precious ecosystems? Do the predator-free New Zealand people and DOC have a “social licence to operate” by using these materials?
A similar thought pops up when we are faced with yet another major rates rise, because the council simply can’t handle their growth-at-all-cost policy. What was it again that the councillors promised at election time?
A social licence is a step up from simply “decent manners” and “social behaviour”, which conjures up the picture of gallant men opening doors for ladies, not speaking with your mouth full of food and generally behaving well in the company of other people.
Social behaviour is what we strive towards in our community and it isn’t a coincidence that the words “community” and “communication” stem from the same old Latin word communis, meaning “to exchange or share obligations”.
In the insect world, an interesting form of social behaviour is regularly found in the ants, bees and wasp group of Hymenoptera and critters such as termites. Even within the related order of cockroaches, you can find evidence of social living and sharing.
These traits are simply useful to survive much more efficiently as a unit: there is a division of labour when it comes to reproduction, food gathering or defence of the colony, some cooperative care of the young ones in the whanau, and overlapping generations, allowing the youngsters to assist their parents in bringing up the next lot of kids.
Avondale spiders have worked out a nice family arrangement, whereby the juveniles are tolerated in the ancestral dwelling (usually a loose flap of wattle tree bark) until they have grown up and are ready to start their own family.
In fact, the family hunt prey and share the catch, presumably in front of a fire, watching telly.
This mild-mannered family affair is probably the main reason that the Avondale spider, as a species, is very slow to disperse through Auckland’s western suburbs. The parents tolerate their kids in the old territory and don’t really encourage them to leave.
But all this social living does not necessarily mean that all which live by such arrangements have what we humans call manners. Oh no! Termites are a real loony bunch when you are looking for some examples: child labour is part of society, as is anal trophallaxis: the transfer of fluids between different individuals. It helps, of course, to distribute useful gut protozoa and other microbes that allow the termites to digest cellulose.
Some termite soldiers excrete a defensive material with such an explosive force that most of the abdomen is blown off in the process. It might be altruistic and effective behaviour, but you can hardly call that manners!
What I find fascinating is the concept of a nuptial gift. No, it’s not a customary bunch of flowers, a diamond ring, or some daring undergarment. It’s real food. And some predatory invertebrates have got nuptial gifting down to a fine art.
Some spiders practise this technique, but robber flies are the absolute masters of creating a social licence to operate.
These flies are serious predators that catch prey on the wing. Their mouth parts consist of a short, sharp tube that is jabbed into any insect that is silly enough to get caught… and that could even be an amorous male of the same species.
Mating is a dangerous occupation, so a male robber fly catches a small “present” for his bride and offers that to her with all his compliments.
Slurping the liquid contents out of that present takes a short while, but it’s all the time a male needs to successfully mate with that female. Nice manners? I think so! But wouldn’t you know it: there are also robber fly species in which the male offers his girlfriend useless seeds or inedible bits of fluff. Of course, by the time she’s worked out that the nuptial gift is a con, he’ll already be in the bar…
Telling stories!
Social living does not necessarily mean that all which live by such arrangements have what we humans call good manners.