Getting a grip: ‘Velcro’-like structure helps bees stick to flowers

A paper by Heather M. Whitney, Lars Chittka, Toby J.A. Bruce and Beverley J. Glover in Current Biology shows that bumblebees can recognise the texture of petal surfaces by touch alone. More importantly, they choose to land on petals with conical cells that make it easier to grip, rather than on flat, smooth surfaces.

Read the press release at University of Cambridge, or the article at Current Biology.