The beetle babies then latch onto the back of the male. When the male mates with an actual female bee, it unknowingly transfers its larval cargo to her. The larvae hitch a ride on the female to the nest, where they grow and mature, and the whole cycle begins again.
The deception appears to have evolved as a survival tool for the blister beetle, which live in California's harsh Mojave desert environment where temperatures reach well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
"Walking to a nest would therefore be extremely difficult for a 2 mm-long (.078-inch) larva," said Saul-Gershenz.
Tom Zavortink, a researcher at the University of California at Davis’ Bohart Museum of Entomology, told Discovery News that he read some initial reports about the blister beetle larvae several years ago, so he was not surprised by the findings.
"Scientists expected that a chemical cue might allow the larvae to fool male bees, so this new research confirms the suspicions," Zavortink explained.
Saul-Gershenz said she and colleague Jocelyn Millar are currently studying how the larvae cooperate with each other, including the possibility that some individual larvae might serve as leaders within the clusters.
