A bumblebee flies up to inspect a flower, looking for a taste of nectar. It buzzes around a bit and realises that something is different. The bee can see the flower but cannot reach it. That is because the "flower" – actually a blue plastic disc with sugar water in the centre – is sitting underneath a sheet of transparent plastic. Luckily for the bee, there is a string attached to the flower. All it has to do is pull on the string, haul out the flower, and sip its reward. So it does.
But there is more. Once one bee figured out what it needed to do to access the artificial flower, other bees that were looking on learned the string-tugging trick themselves. The technique even outlasted the original successful bee. It became part of the colony's skillset, transmitted from bee to bee after the first string-pulling bee had died.
Bees can also learn to recognise colours and patterns. Can they find their way back home from several kilometres away? Not a problem. Recognise human faces? That too. Can bees use tools? Well, that is what Chittka wants to answer next. Chittka's lab did an experiment in the 1990s in which they asked whether bees can count. They can.
So most likely a velociraptor could figure out how to open a door. That's definitely the intended take-home message here.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170123-how-insects-like-bumblebees-do-so-much-with-tiny-brains
It's obvious — their little brains were designed by Steven Wozniak.
ReplyDelete