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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 11, 2025

Collection and Identification of Pollen from Honey Bee Colonies

Collection and Identification of Pollen from Honey Bee Colonies

Published on: January 19, 2021

Trapline foraging by nectar-collecting hornets.

Mathilde Lacombrade¹, Kristine Abenis^1,2, Charlotte Doussot¹

¹Research Center on Animal Cognition (CRCA), Center of Integrative Biology (CBI), CNRS, Toulouse University, Toulouse, France.

Animal Cognition

|April 19, 2025

Summary

Japanese yellow hornets exhibit trapline foraging, visiting artificial flowers in a repeatable sequence. This behavior expands our understanding of route learning and memory in nectar-foraging wasps.

Keywords:

Vespa simillima Artificial flowers Spatial cognition Spatial movement networks Traplining

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Published on: December 12, 2012

Area of Science:

Behavioral Ecology
Animal Cognition
Insect Behavior

Background:

Many animals, including bees, butterflies, birds, bats, and primates, use "traplines"—stable, repeatable sequences for visiting familiar food resources.
Trapline foraging demonstrates complex route learning and memory in various animal taxa.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the existence of trapline foraging behavior in wasps, specifically the Japanese yellow hornet (Vespa simillima).
To analyze the movement patterns and learning capabilities of hornets during foraging on artificial flower arrays.

Main Methods:

Individually marking wild Japanese yellow hornets.
Monitoring hornet movement patterns while they foraged on four artificial flowers within their home range.
Analyzing visitation sequences over thirty consecutive foraging bouts and using different flower array configurations.

Main Results:

All monitored hornets developed a consistent and repeatable sequence of flower visitation after repeated foraging bouts.
Hornet foraging efficiency increased with experience.
Hornets did not consistently choose the shortest path, often prioritizing nearest-neighbor movements over minimizing total travel distance.

Conclusions:

Japanese yellow hornets exhibit trapline foraging, similar to other known animal groups.
This finding broadens the scope of comparative research on multi-destination route learning and memory.
The study adds nectar-foraging wasps to the list of animals demonstrating sophisticated spatial memory and navigation strategies.