Evolution
At least 30 lineages of mites have specialized in living with bees. Most mite species associated with bee nests are either sparophagous or cleptophagous. Sarophagous is when mites eat hive debris, especially parts of fungi growing. Cleptophagous is when mites eat pollen and other nutrients stored by bees. Interestingly, the small few that have evolved to become parasitic appear to have arisen from predatory lineages. The family Laelapidae has 12 genera that predate on sting-less bees (Meliponinae). Thus, it appears that the brood parasites (Varroidae) of honeybees (Apinae) evolved from the Laelapidae family.
Read more about this topic: Varroa Jacobsoni
Famous quotes containing the word evolution:
“Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.”
—Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989)
“What we think of as our sensitivity is only the higher evolution of terror in a poor dumb beast. We suffer for nothing. Our own death wish is our only real tragedy.”
—Mario Puzo (b. 1920)
“Analyze theory-building how we will, we all must start in the middle. Our conceptual firsts are middle-sized, middle-distanced objects, and our introduction to them and to everything comes midway in the cultural evolution of the race.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)