The Fish and Wildlife Service proposed extending Endangered Species Act protections Monday to the Suckley’s cuckoo bumblebee, a parasitic species whose decline is tied to the other bees it takes advantage of.
In its long-awaited decision, the federal agency characterized the Suckley’s cuckoo as both endangered and, well, rather ruthless.
“Female cuckoo bumble bees invade host bumble bee nests where they will often eliminate the host queen, destroy host eggs, and eject host larvae from the nest,” the FWS reported.
All of which is compensation for the species’ own shortcomings. The FWS explained that cuckoo bumblebees “lack a mechanism to carry pollen and are unable to produce worker bees, and thus depend on social bee hosts to collect the pollen on which they rear their young.”
