Wrestling, Wasps and war paint...

When two Mexican Wrestlers square off at the start of a fight can they tell, just by looking at the mask of their opponent, who is the better fighter?


Well wrestling paper wasps can. These wasps often have patterns on their faces comprised of one or two spots:


And apparently the wasps with the most spots tend to be the better fighters! What is really surprising though is that there don’t seem to be ‘cheats’ evolving. I mean you don’t get weak deer with the biggest antlers because antlers are costly to grow and maintain, but face spots don’t look that costly right? So why don’t you get weakling wasps pretending to be stronger with spotty faces?

Well it turns out that if a wasp gets into a fight with a faker (either a weak opponent with more spots or a strong opponent with less) then they are likely to attack much more ferociously than they would against a normal opponent. So the cost isn’t in getting the spots, it’s in getting caught!

And how did scientists find this out? Well that’s where the war paint comes in. Wasps were painted to look stronger (spottier) than they really were or were given hormones to make them stronger than they looked, and then sent off to wrestle. The painted or homonally stronger bees if caught out were punished! Poor things!

Find out more?

Odd knitters...

I’ve finally finished knitting my second sock! And after only six months!! Not much of an achievement I know, especially given the state of the knitting. I mean neither sock is perfect with one too short and one with a really odd heel…but I think I may just about have worked the kinks out of the ‘pattern’ (or bits and pieces of advice randomly worked into some form of knitting) so that next time may also not be perfect…but should definitely be better.

So 6 months from now is about Christmas right? Ok random family and friends of Odd Bob, if for Christmas you get a prezzies from me about the size and shape of a pair of badly knitted socks…just smile and pretend that you love them! I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it eventually.


Until then I’ve decided to celebrate by hunting out photos of odd knitters, just look who I found:

Cary Grant:


I just love the look of concentration:P

Audrey Hepburn:


Looking a lot more elegant.

Franklin D Roosevelt:


Somehow I can’t imagine Bush or Obama knitting.

And my favourite, Dave Lister (aka Craig Charles):


Rewatched this episode vaguely recently and was amused to note that whilst he does seem to have half finished knitting in his hands throughout the scene he never actually does any knitting…

This may just have inspired me to get started on sock number 3…wish me luck:)

Baby Snails!

Just a month late... here's some pics of my baby snails:


And baby on daddy/mummy's shoulders:


As the snails are hermaphrodites they are kinda both male and female (hense they each got each other pregnant). I'm pretty sure that for the first lot of babies Dovi was the dad and Nicky the mum and vice versa for the second set (they had about 100 babies each!!)

The babies are now about a month old and a lot bigger, will have to get more pics!!

I also (finally) added some folliage to their tank including some basil and coriander (no I am not ready seasoning them for eating!!) but they do really like the herbs. Now just empty pots half burried in the tank...may need to get more.