Bee humbles nuclear winter theorists

The tropical honeybee Cretotrigona prisca is calling into question the theory that a post-asteroid impact caused a “nuclear winter” that was a big player in the decimation of dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

A palaeontology graduate student Jacqueline M Kozisek of the University of New Orleans says that tropical honeybees from the Late Cretaceous preserved in amber are almost identical to their modern relatives. But no modern tropical honeybee could have survived years in the dark and cold without flowering plants.