> Michael Hrncir, Friedrich G. Barth and Jürgen Tautz. (2005). Vibratory and Airborne-Sound Signals in Bee Communication
IN: Insect sounds and communication: physiology, behaviour, ecology, and evolution, 421. Chicago
That's the "advantage" of a book - no pesky peer review to force one to offer any more than one's own viewpoint.
Multiple parties using exclusively airborne sounds have gotten clear and compelling evidence of bees' ability to hear purely airborne sound, the specific structures in the bees anatomy that clearly serve no other function documented, so what is the "argument" being offered here? That bees do NOT hear airborne sound?
Recall that Tauz's book "The Buzz About Bees" begins with a Prolog entitled "The Bee Colony - a Mammal in Many Bodies", which espoused the usual mystical magical concept of a bee colony being a "Superorganism", but goes further to actually walk through a blow-by-blow comparison between a colony of bees and a mammal. I first thought that this was an artifact of a poor translation, so I got a galley proof of the German original, " Phaenomen Honigbiene", and nope, the translation was faithful, it is instead the author's views that are a tad... pixelated. Clearly, Tauz is a raconteur first and foremost in his books, and the hard science takes a back seat.
Any guy who wants to misclassify a bee colony as a "mammal" certainly is someone to have a drink with, but not someone to cite when discussing specifics of honey bee anatomy and biology.
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