BEAUTIFUL WILD WORK

We hope you’ve had a lovely summer and a wonderful Labor Day! Now, back to work!

 

To inspire our new start, and to lessen the blow of work reality hitting us smack in the face, we took a look at our animal friends who have made work into an artform.

 

First up, the leafcutter bee. They are busy carving out lozenges of leaves, carrying them back to their nests, and using them to line the walls of their nest cells. Leafcutter bees work alone, vs in social colonies like honey bees and ants. And it’s the females who do all of the work.

Photo: Courtesy of Slow and Steady. Leaf Cutter Bee

 

They dig out nesting areas in places like soft rotted wood, produce individual cells with tubes 4 to 8 inches long, lay about 3 dozen eggs apiece, and feed their babies.

 

Leafcutters’ work is important for pollination as well. In fact, they do this job so well, with alfalfa in particular, farmers have deployed them to pollinate their crops.

 

Watch this recent video of leafcutter bees hard at work here.

Photo: Jerome Rozen, American Museum of Natural History. Osmia Avosetta.

 

A brand new species of bee has recently been discovered in Turkey and Iran that favors flower petals over leaves, and uses them to wallpaper their homes. The Osmia Averrata sculpts an incredibly beautiful nest, like a 3D collage, with two layers of petals sandwiched together with mud.

Photo: Jerome Rozen, American Museum of Natural History. Osmia Avosetta Nests

 

Once the floral nest is built, the bee deposits a blob of pollen mixed with nectar inside at the bottom,  lays her egg on top, then seals the chamber with a mud plug. The larvae has a perfect humidity controlled nursery and a ready supply of baby food while it grows, spins a cocoon, and hibernates for 10 months until the following spring.

Photo: Courtesy of St. Augustine Florida, Bowerbird.

 

One of the most extravagant avian designers/builders is the bowerbird. A native of Australia and New Guinea, this bird take years to build an elaborate nest. Each bird is a unique artist, and each nest is a one-of-a-kind original.

 

The male bower creates the design, the architectural plan, as it plots out the optimum nest with which to attract a mate. The materials include anything… really anything the bird might find, such as leaves, shells, feathers, broken glass, plastic, flowers, pebbles, candy wrappers, pieces of cloth, moss --  even live insects add to the decor. The male gets particular about color and composition, just like any other artist. Watch him in action.

 

Video: Courtesy of BBC Worldwide

 

When the masterpiece is finished, the female comes to a house inspection once it’s done. If she likes what she sees, she stays, mates, and tends the brood. If not, she moves on to the house of her dreams.

Photo: Ergosum88. Betta Splendens with bubble nest

 

Some fish are work hard too. The newly discovered Betta Simorientalis,  cousin of the popular aquarium pet, is busy blowing bubbles to form a protective nest for eggs. The male bettas blow air bubbles in a cluster at the surface of the water. After the fish spawn, and the females release their eggs, the males scoop them up and deposit them inside the bubbles.

 

Watch an expert bubble-blowing betta here.

 

 

Video: Ethan Vang

 

The males stay busy, protecting the embryos from predators until they hatch after just few days. The hatchlings, or fry, hang out under the bubbles until they feel safe enough to venture out on their own.

 

Animals display a special kind of beauty in their work. We hope we do the same.

 

Check out stories about Beautiful Work all this week on BeautifulNow, including New Spaces for Beautiful Work, The Beautiful Impact of Work, and more in our Food/Drink, Arts/Design, Place/Time, and Mind/Body genres.

 

Get busy and enter the BN Competitions, Our theme this week is Work. Send in your images and ideas, for beauty in work.