Paper wasps would be lousy poker players. Their faces always give them away, and any attempt at bluffing only earns them a beating—the first evidence of how animals police one another to keep social signals honest.
Elizabeth Tibbetts of the University of Arizona was drawn to paper wasps because of the way they establish hierarchy within the all-female colony. After female wasps mate, they fight each other to establish their rank: The higher it is, the more egg laying and the less work they have to do. Tibbetts found that a lot of fighting is not necessary, however, because the wasps signal their strength and status with the number of black splotches on their bright yellow faces (more splotches denote higher status). That got her wondering. It’s not hard to produce a splotchy face, she noted, so why wouldn’t more paper wasps have evolved the appearance of high rank?
To ...
