Natural thermoelectric heat pump in social wasps.

Photographs of wasps or hornets, taken with different temperature sensitive infrared cameras, reveal body temperatures that are sometimes significantly lower than the ambient temperature. This suggests that the hornets possess an intrinsic biological heat pump mechanism which can be used to achieve such cooling. Evidence is presented to substantiate this novel suggestion and to argue that the heat pump is most likely implemented by exploiting a thermoelectric effect in the hornet cuticle. Such a natural heat pump can conceivably also serve to cool the active hornet, engaged in daytime activities outside the nest at ambient temperatures exceeding 40 degrees C, to a body temperature that is low enough to allow its survival in extreme thermal conditions. It might also function as a means of raising the body temperature up to a level that enables the hornet to remain active even when the ambient temperature is as low as 10 degrees C.