Peromones Research Paper

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Pheromones are substances emitted by an organism to elicit any response to the other members of the same species. In order for the substance to be classified as a pheromone, the response elicited should be innate and not learned. It serves as a communication means to inform other animals regarding things related to territory, reproduction and rearing of offspring, presence of danger or even the presence of rivals.

During the 19th century, Jean-Henri Fabre witnessed as the female emperor moth emerged from her cocoon, he placed the moth into a gauzy cage to see what might happen next. In the evening, a swarm of male emperor moths rushed to the cage containing the female emperor moth. Fabre was soon boggled by the phenomenon and so he tried experimenting. When he placed the female moth into a tightly closed container, the male moths were not able to find her, this caused Fabre to conclude that the female moth attracted the male moth through the sense of smell. It took another century before German scientist Adolf Butenandt and his team worked to seek the scent elicited by the female emperor moth to attract the opposite sex. A thousand moths were extracted of chemicals to determine the cause of the phenomenon; it was a chemical known as bombykal. After Butenandt’s discovery, scientist started to find more about the chemicals known as pheromones.

Pheromones affect the central nervous system in two different ways. One of which causes an immediate behavioral response upon reception. The second has a delayed effect on behavior. Chemical stimuli initiating immediate behavioral responses are termed releasers while those, which take time for responses to occur, are referred to as primers. Chemically identified releaser hormones are of thr...

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...erms of the upbringing is that from birth, queen bees are treated royally being placed in a queen cell with abundant food supply (royal jelly). The behavior being showed from this scenario is due to the pheromone.

In summary, pheromones are chemical signals elicited by an individual species in order to communicate with the other members of the group. There are two distinct types of pheromones mainly releaser pheromones and primer pheromones. Releaser pheromones elicit a quick response. Chemically, releaser pheromones are of three types such as sex pheromones which signal for mating, alarm pheromone which plays a role in warning the other members of the species of danger and recruitment pheromones an example of such pheromone is the trail pheromone wherein it is use as a navigational aid for the colony. Primer pheromones on the other hand induce a delayed response.

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