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Is honesty really the best policy? Isn't it more beneficial to cheat, if you can get away with it? A study from the insect world provides a new perspective on honest communication by showing that paper wasps that send dishonest signals are aggressively punished, and the drubbing can have long-term impacts.
Pictured here, two female paper wasps are fighting. In laboratory experiments, bouts between rival females were videotaped and aggression was scored based on the number of mounts, bites, grapples and stings observed.Image credit: Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Tibbetts
