被蜜蜂覆盖：古代蜜蜂在哺乳动物下颌骨中筑巢

Ancient bees burrowed deep into discarded mammal jawbones 7 millimeters THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO in what is now the Dominican Republic, there was a cave full of bones. And those bones were full of bees. In a paleontological first, researchers have discovered that bees used the jaw- bones of now extinct mammals as bur- rows. It’s not clear what species of bee was exploiting this grisly opportu- nity—only its smooth-walled nests were left behind, nestled in the tooth pockets of ancient rodents and sloths. Such behavior has never been docu- mented before, says Lázaro W. Viñola López, a postdoctoral researcher at the Field Museum and one of the discover- ers. “It was something completely un- expected,” he says. …