{"id":28702,"date":"2023-06-21T17:00:42","date_gmt":"2023-06-21T15:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/?p=146119"},"modified":"2023-06-21T17:38:56","modified_gmt":"2023-06-21T15:38:56","slug":"a-conga-line-of-80-worms-were-caught-jumping-on-a-bees-bum-using-an-electric-field","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/rss_feed\/a-conga-line-of-80-worms-were-caught-jumping-on-a-bees-bum-using-an-electric-field\/","title":{"rendered":"A conga line of 80 worms were caught jumping on a bee\u2019s bum using an electric field"},"content":{"rendered":"

These tiny acrobats are on their way to the A Bugs Life circus. <\/p>

By Noa Leach\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 21 June 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

Ever wished you could just leap onto the nearest travelling object to cut down your journey time? Well, scientists have just discovered that a microscopic worm can use electric fields to leap onto moving creatures<\/a> \u2013 and they caught it on film.<\/p>\n

Much like hitchhiking for humans, this ability allows the worms to save energy and travel further.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you are very small, the world is a very different place,\u201d entomologist and broadcaster Adam Hart<\/a>, who was not involved in the study, told BBC Science Focus<\/em>.\u00a0\u201cCaenorhabditis<\/em>\u00a0elegans\u00a0<\/em>is an incredibly well-studied creature and yet even with all that attention we can still find something new.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 1mm long C. elegans<\/em> worms, which are commonly found in the soil, were found attempting to fling themselves from Petri dishes in the labs of Hiroshima University and Hokkaido University, Japan. So the scientists rubbed pollen on a bumblebee to build an electric charge and watched as the worms jumped aboard.<\/p>\n

Published in the journal\u00a0Current Biology<\/i>, the study also found that worms can get on each others\u2019 \u2018shoulders\u2019 in a single column, each worm lifting the one below. In this tiny conga line, as many as 80 worms can jump the electric field in one go. A conga line of 80 worms were caught jumping on a bee\u2019s bum using an electrical field, as shown in this video.<\/p>\n\n<div id=\""C1127HQU8-1687347127.108519-thread-list-Thread_1687350452.039789"\" class=\""c-virtual_list__item\" c-virtual_list__item--initial-activeitem=\"\" role=\""listitem"\" data-qa=\""virtual-list-item"\" data-item-key=\""1687350452.039789"\">\n<div class=\""c-message_kit__background\" c-message_kit__message=\"\" c-message_kit__thread_message=\"\" role=\""presentation"\" data-qa=\""message_container"\" data-qa-unprocessed=\""false"\" data-qa-placeholder=\""false"\">\n<div class=\""c-message_kit__hover"\" role=\""document"\" data-qa-hover=\""true"\">\n<div class=\""c-message_kit__actions\" c-message_kit__actions--default=\"\">\n<div class=\""c-message_kit__gutter"\">\n<div class=\""c-message_kit__gutter__right"\" role=\""presentation"\" data-qa=\""message_content"\">\n<div class=\""c-message_kit__blocks\" c-message_kit__blocks--rich_text=\"\">\n<div class=\""c-message__message_blocks\" c-message__message_blocks--rich_text=\"\" data-qa=\""message-text"\">\n<div class=\""p-block_kit_renderer"\" data-qa=\""block-kit-renderer"\">\n<div class=\""p-block_kit_renderer__block_wrapper\" p-block_kit_renderer__block_wrapper--first=\"\">\n<div class=\""p-rich_text_block"\" dir=\""auto"\">\n<div class=\""p-rich_text_section"\">The scientists discovered that the worms jump at an average speed of 0.86 meters per second, which is about the same as human walking speed. However, this speed increases with electric field intensity.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Pollinators like butterflies, bees and hummingbirds are known to form an electric field with the plants that they pollinate to attract the pollen to them, making them electrically charged. But, until now, scientists have not known whether these fields are used between animals \u2013 let along as a way for tiny creatures to hop onto much larger ones.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat we discovered this by researchers observing\u00a0<em>C. elegans\u00a0<\/em>stuck to the lids of Petri dishes shows just how important the first step of the scientific method, observation, really is,\u201d said Hart.<\/p>\n<p>The scientists are yet to discover exactly how the worms use the electric field, but they suspect it is genetic.<\/p>\n<p>Hart added: \u201cThis discovery is likely to open up a whole range of studies looking at the use of electrical fields for movement of tiny creatures, especially those that need to jump on to a host, either for hitchhiking (termed phoresies) or because they are parasites.\u201d<\/p>\n<section class=\""highlight\"> <div class=\""highlight__content\" editor-content=\"\"> \n<h4>About our expert:<\/h4>\n<p>Adam Hart is an entomologist and Professor of Science Communication at the University of Gloucestershire. As well as research and teaching, he is a regular broadcaster for BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service. On television, Adam has co-presented several documentary series, most notably BBC4\u2019s <em>Planet Ant<\/em> and BBC2\u2019s <em>Hive Alive<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/nature\/worms-are-hugely-important-yet-seem-to-be-the-most-under-appreciated-animal-on-the-planet\/"\">\u201cWorms are hugely important, yet seem to be the most under-appreciated animal on the planet\u201d<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/news\/worm-astronauts-will-help-us-safely-send-humans-on-deep-space-missions\/"\">Worm astronauts will help us safely send humans on deep space missions<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/nature\/what-is-a-hammerhead-worm\/"\">What is a hammerhead worm?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> <\/p><\/div> <\/section> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> These tiny acrobats are on their way to the A Bugs Life circus. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":28703,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/06\/a-conga-line-of-80-worms-were-caught-jumping-on-a-bees-bum-using-an-electric-field.jpg",1200,801,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/06\/a-conga-line-of-80-worms-were-caught-jumping-on-a-bees-bum-using-an-electric-field-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/06\/a-conga-line-of-80-worms-were-caught-jumping-on-a-bees-bum-using-an-electric-field-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/06\/a-conga-line-of-80-worms-were-caught-jumping-on-a-bees-bum-using-an-electric-field-768x513.jpg",768,513,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/06\/a-conga-line-of-80-worms-were-caught-jumping-on-a-bees-bum-using-an-electric-field-1024x684.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/06\/a-conga-line-of-80-worms-were-caught-jumping-on-a-bees-bum-using-an-electric-field.jpg",1200,801,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/06\/a-conga-line-of-80-worms-were-caught-jumping-on-a-bees-bum-using-an-electric-field.jpg",1200,801,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"These tiny acrobats are on their way to the A Bugs Life circus.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/28702"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}