>
> >My doubt is that any large scale attempt to, with open breeding and  a
> huge  bank of completely undocumented mutts is going to pull a rabbit out
> of a hat.


Yet that is exactly how most of our domesticated stocks of plants and
animals came about.

In answer to Pete, I'm glad that we are finally agreeing upon basic
definitions : )

Let's now think about the definition of "natural."  The Western Honey Bee
appears to have differentiated from it Asian brethren in Africa, and then
moved back up north as the ice sheet retreated.  Thus we may ask ourselves
why A.m. scutellata is so noticeably defensive.

This race evolved under intense selective pressure from predators. The
fiercest predators were the honey badger and humans, both of which evolved
mutually-advantageous communication behaviors with the Honeyguide bird (see
Dick's previous post).   The only colonies that survived were those that
drove off those natural predators, so the bee evolved to preferentially
attack dark, warm-blooded animals, especially mammals.

Thus, one could argue that "natural" human predation inadvertently selected
for the most defensive bees.

Reciprocal signaling in honeyguide-human mutualism
Science  22 Jul 2016:
Vol. 353, Issue 6297, pp. 387-389
DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf4885


-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html