Eli5 how did bees evolve to be a stinger that kills them when used?
In: 2
Cause they don’t always die. Bees die when they sting humans or other mammals cause our skin in very flexible and rubbery and thick so the stinger gets stuck and is basically ripped out of the bee killing it.
Insects have carapace (hard armor like skin) so the stinger either can’t penetrate or crushes through and can then be retracted easily. So for fighting insects its great.
Add to that the fact that the way evolution works is the ones that adapt better survive and reproduce. But worker bees don’t reproduce and they don’t sting humans in such numbers that it impacts the hive (in fact I’d wager the number if bees dying from their stinger getting stuck is within the fluctuation of the amount of bees that get eaten by predators each year). So there is no real evolutionary advantage to develop a different stinger.
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