Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Green Bee Eater with the Bee

The Green Bee-eater, Merops orientalis, (sometimes Little Green Bee-eater) is a near passerine bird in the bee-eater family.

Just as the name suggests, bee-eaters predominantly eat insects, especially bees, wasps and ants, which are caught in the air by sorties from an open perch. Before feeding, a bee-eater removes stings and breaks the exoskeleton of the prey by repeatedly hitting the insect on their perch.
A study showed that the Green Bee-eaters is capable of interpreting the behavior of other animals. They showed an ability to predict whether a predator at a particular location would be capable of spotting the nest entrance and then behaved appropriately to avoid giving away the nest location. The ability to look at a situation from another's point of view was previously believed to be possessed only by primates

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