Word: esch
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Zoologist Harald Esch of the University of Munich stumbled on the information while performing an elaborate experiment on bee dances. Prompted by curiosity, he poked a small microphone into the hive while a scout was making her dancing report. "I got the surprise of my life," he says. "Blasting out of the earphones came a loud 'thththrrrr.' followed by a short 'beep.' Then some of the worker bees flew out of the hive. I knew I had hit on something entirely...
Stirring Up the Workers. A little more observation showed that the whirring sounds were made by the scout bee just as she went into a tail-wagging dance, but two years of work were needed to translate the meaning of the new code of sound. Dr. Esch finally decided that the length of the sounds reported the distance to the nectar supply. The pitch of the sounds and the intervals between them told its quality and quantity. Made with slight nonflying movements of wings, the sounds seemed to stimulate the watching workers to fly toward the new-found food...