Meaning of vulture bee | Babel Free

Definitions

Any of various bee species in the genus Trigona that feed on carrion.

Examples

“National Geographic Explorer: Ten Incredible Years, 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 25, TBS. Highlights of a decade's worth of Explorer programs that featured, just for starters, the first peek at the Titanic since its 1912 sinking, the world's biggest sumo wrestler and the flesh-eating vulture bee of Panama.”

“Like⟳ most adult bees, the vulture bee, Trigona hypogea (Tree-GO-na hyPO-jee-A), collects food to bring⟳ back to the nest so it can feed⟳ its young. But rather than slurp up pollen and nectar from flowers as most bees do, vulture bees gather meat.”

“It is a flesh-eating bee. Actually, we joke – we call⟳ it the vulture bee. And it does have⟳ cusps on its mandibles, it has no little tool kit, no curriculum or pollen basket to carry⟳ pollen back to the nest. It has no need⟳ for that.”

“To build⟳ an understanding of whether the extreme diet shift of vulture bees led to symbiont replacement or whether the core gut microbiome adapted to this new diet, we here compare⟳ the gut microbiomes of pollinivorous, facultatively necrophagous, and obligately necrophagous stingless bees.”

CEFR level