{"id":131963,"date":"2026-11-04T13:22:17","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T07:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=131963"},"modified":"2026-11-04T14:27:49","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T08:57:49","slug":"colletes-inaequalis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/colletes-inaequalis\/","title":{"rendered":"Colletes inaequalis: Study Reveals Bee-Made Polyester That Degrades in Soil"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Colletes Inaequalis Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researchers found that Cellophane bee Colletes inaequalis produces a kind of plastic that also degrades within a year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Colletes Inaequalis<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>solitary, ground-nesting bee<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> belonging to the Colletidae family.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They pollinate red maple, willow, and<strong> apple trees.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Unique Nesting Capacity<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These bees <\/span><b>line the inner walls<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of its nest with a transparent, cellophane-like film, earning it the <\/span><b>nickname \u201ccellophane bee.\u201d<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The nest lining of the ground-nesting bee is translucent, flexible, resilient and degrades within a year.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This cellophane like film is a flexible, translucent material made <\/span><b>from polyester and silk.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The material is produced <\/span><b>in a specialized gland, called the Dufour&#8217;s gland<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, that is connected to the bee&#8217;s stinger.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The polyester produced by cellophane <\/span><b>bees resembles polyethylene<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in its molecular packing.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Highlights of the Study<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The analysis showed that the polyester produced by the cellophane bee has a \u201c<\/span><b>semicrystalline\u201d structure,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in which amorphous and crystalline regions coexist within a single material.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The polyester nest <\/span><b>material showed impressive degradation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in a short amount of time.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>In natural soil,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the amount of polyester <\/span><b>lining fell from 73% to 40%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the nest by weight within four months.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By seven months, the linings developed visible cracks, and by 11 months, they became brittle and prone to crumbling.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source:<\/b> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/energy-and-environment\/cellophane-bees-produce-a-kind-of-plastic-that-also-degrades-study-finds\/article71660428.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TH<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers found that Colletes inaequalis, a solitary cellophane bee, makes a plastic-like polyester lining for its nests that deteriorates in soil within a year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":131975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11353,21,22,23],"class_list":["post-131963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","tag-colletes-inaequalis","tag-prelims-pointers","tag-upsc-current-affairs","tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131963"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132019,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131963\/revisions\/132019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}