Bumblebees Learn from Each Other to Solve Complicated Puzzles

Bumblebees can teach each other how to solve puzzles that are too difficult for them to solve alone. This finding suggests that these insects may use advanced social learning that has previously been demonstrated only in humans.

Previous research by alice bridges Queen Mary University of London has proposed that bumblebees could teach each other how to open lever puzzles to obtain sweet treats. And they preferred solutions they learned from their peers to solutions they had come up with on their own, as if the techniques were a cultural trend.

Now, Bridges challenged the bees to a more difficult puzzle box that required them to operate a blue lever and then a red lever in order. Even after 12 to 14 days of trying, the bees from three different colonies couldn’t figure it out on their own.

The researchers then taught nine bumblebees the key. But the training was so difficult that the animals initially refused to participate until the humans provided additional sweet rewards along the way, Bridges said. Once reintroduced to the colony, the skilled bee passed on its new knowledge to five other bees who had never seen the puzzle box before.

“suddenly, [naive bees] We were able to learn everything from trained demonstrators,” Bridges said. “When I could barely train, [the demonstrators] To do that. “

Until now, there was little evidence that non-human animals are capable of cumulative culture (defined as the ability to learn skills from other animals that cannot be acquired through a lifetime of independent trial and error). This feat allowed humans to create complex knowledge systems like modern medicine.

These findings “raise serious questions about this idea of human exceptionalism,” they wrote. alex thornton At the University of Exeter, UK his explanation on paper.

But we shouldn’t praise the cumulative culture of bees just yet. Elisa Bandini At the University of Zurich. She is not convinced that the experiment shows a behavior so complex that individual bees cannot develop it on their own. If the untaught bees had received additional rewards in the same way as the trained bees, they might have solved the puzzle on their own.