Antennal glands in male bees: structures for sexual communication by pheromones?

Abstract

-Morphological investigations were conducted on male antennae of three Apidae species, Apis mellifera, Bombus pascuorum and Xylocopa violacea. Male antennal glands were present in all species, with some differences regarding both external morphological characters and internal cytological features. There are externally obvious sites of pheromonal release (provided with evident pores) in B. pascuorum and X. violacea males, while pores are lacking in A. mellifera males. Internally A. mellifera presents a glandular complex composed of class 1 secretory cells, while the two other species possess two types of glands (with class 1 and class 3 secretory cells) associated with the same release sites. The functional hypothesis for the secretion of these glands is that they may act as a sex pheromone during courtship behaviour.Apis / Bombus / Xylocopa / gland / ultrastructure / sex recognition

The role of the antennae during courtship behaviour in the parasitic waspTrichopria drosophilae

“…In fact, males of Terebrantia (e.g. Bin and Vinson, 1986;Bin et al, 1999) and Aculeata (Felicioli et al, 1998;Isidoro et al, 2000;Romani et al, 2003;Romani et al, 2005) have glanded antennomeres.…”

Antennal Structures Used in Communication by Egg Parasitoids

“…In the last 25 years, a series of studies dealing with morphological and behavioral aspects of insect parasitoids revealed that in addition to sensilla, antennae are the site of different structures as well (Isidoro et al 1996, Bin et al 1999a. Particularly, the presence of antennal glands, in most cases found in male antennae, were discovered in several families of parasitic wasps, as well as other hymenopterans, with different functional significance (Bin et al 1999b, Isidoro et al 2000, Kaltenpoth et al 2005, Romani et al 2003, 2006, 2008, Goettler et al 2007. In this chapter, morphological and functional aspects of antennal structures that are involved in the communication between egg parasitoids will be covered.…”

Honeybee drones are attracted by groups of consexuals in a walking simulator

“…just around the time when drones start leaving the hive for nuptial flights and before drones are fully sexually mature (Ruttner, 1985;Lensky et al, 1985). Alternately, honeybee drones present apparently functional antennal glands (Romani et al, 2003). In addition, in more than 30 species of bumblebees, the labial glands were identified as the source of male-produced attractive components (Ayasse et al, 2001).…”