Summary
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how members of the same species send each other invisible chemical signals to influence the way they behave. Pheromones are used by species across the animal kingdom in a variety of ways, such as laying trails to be followed, to raise the alarm, to scatter from predators, to signal dominance and to enhance attractiveness and, in honey bees, even direct development into queen or worker.
The image above is of male and female ladybirds that have clustered together in response to pheromones.
With
Tristram Wyatt Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford
Jane Hurst William Prescott Professor of Animal Science at the University of Liverpool
and
Francis Ratnieks Professor of Apiculture and Head of the Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects at the University of Sussex
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:04.8 | Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time. |
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| 0:12.9 | at BBC In Our Time. |
| 0:14.8 | I hope you enjoyed the programs. |
| 0:16.6 | Hello, in 1959, scientists discovered pheromones, |
| 0:20.2 | the chemical signals that make so many animals act without thinking |
| 0:23.6 | or needing to think, and smarting in a line follow pheromones. |
| 0:27.5 | Queen bees keep their status in the hive with them. |
| 0:30.3 | They're the instant code word for bees to swarm, to attack or flee, |
| 0:34.2 | and are the great unconscious signal of sexual attraction |
| 0:37.0 | across so many species. |
| 0:38.5 | Insects, fish, and mammals use them to advance the cause |
| 0:41.0 | of their own species as for humans. |
| 0:43.0 | That's debatable, as we'll hear. |
| 0:45.2 | We'd be to discuss pheromones are, Tristram White, |
| 0:48.4 | Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Zoology |
| 0:50.8 | at the University of Oxford, Jane Hurst, |
| 0:53.4 | William Prescott Professor of Animal Science |
| 0:55.4 | at the University of Liverpool, |
| 0:57.1 | and Frizedge's Ratney X, Professor of Apiculture, |
... |
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