Bumblebees can twist it like Bee - ckham . Researchers have trainedthem to be able to tally a ball into a “ goal ” to receive a sugary payoff , in what is thought to show that the insects are capable of complex learning . Not only that , but they suggest it may also be an example of bees using tools .
The experiment to teach bees soccer is not just for playfulness , but has some pretty profound consequences . The striped insects have been taught how to do complex behaviour before , such as pulling on strings to get a sugary hit not too unlike to how they draw flowers aside , but all of these have mimicked standardised tasks that bee might meet in the wild .
By showing thatthe bees can see something alone new and foreign to what might be experienced naturally , the research worker have show that insect have complex cognitive workings . “ Our study puts the final nail in the coffin of the idea that little brains constrain dirt ball to have limited behavioural flexibility and only simple learning abilities , ” explains Professor Lars Chittka , who co - author the newspaper publisher inScience , in astatement .
The researcherswanted to encounter outif the bee could move a ball to a specific location in rescript to get a sugary syrup wages . First of all , the louse were shown where the chunk should be in the " bee sports stadium " . The team then condition a age bracket of bees under three disjoined condition . One group was designate a previously take aim bee nail the labor , another shown a “ ghost bee ” in which the researchers used attraction to move the ball to the center , and the third was shown no demonstration and merely ascertain the ball in the midsection already .
Those bee that watch another doing the chore were more likely to be able to complete it themselves , but amazingly they did n’t just mirror the teacher bee ’s actions , they expand on it . “ The bees solved the task in a different way than what was demonstrated , suggesting that observer bees did not simply copy what they see , but improved on it,”saysDr Olli J. Loukola , joint jumper cable writer . “ This shows an impressive amount of cognitive flexibility , especially for an louse . ”
The researchers think that this behavioral tractability could be an important attribute for the insects . For illustration , if the surroundings in which they live changes , it would allow them to chop-chop conform . But they also intimate that it could be argued the bee are using creature , in a similar way to how chimps put sticks in hole to get dearest . This would order the humble insect in a very select chemical group of brute that have been shown to have the advance cognitive ability to do so .
