We all know that bees are important in the food chain as pollinators, but these cunning creatures also have an array of other talents, including mathematical abilities, facial recognition, and even tool use. Masu.
A 2021 video originally posted on Twitter showed a pair of bees apparently removing Fanta’s orange lid to reach the sweet liquid inside.
It is important to note that in today’s age of digital tricks, this may just be an AI. Or maybe the bees actually cooperated and just knocked over the cap of the bottle, which was already stuck loosely.
Either way, it’s fun to wonder if bees have the brains to pull off a soda heist like this.
frame border=”0″ permission=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard write; encrypted media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture. web-share” Referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowedfullscreen>
According to video licensor ViralHog, which obtained the footage, the moment was captured by an employee during a lunch break in São Paulo, Brazil.
“I received a soda from a customer, but it was quickly stolen by bees,” the person said. I wrote For video captions.
The slick trick these two bees used to twist open the lid of a soda bottle has left many on the internet baffled. I wonder How can such intelligence exist in an apparently very small brain?
I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it, and I don’t know if I still do. 🤔
— Brian Da Lion (@brian163t) May 25, 2021
But as we’ve learned in recent years, the size of an animal’s noggin isn’t everything.
First, smaller animals naturally require smaller brains because their brain cells can manage much less weight. moreover, complexity of connections between neurons It may be more important for cognitive abilities.
In 1962, 10 years before he won the Nobel Prize for research on honey bee communication, Karl von Frisch declared Bumblebees have brains too small to think, and their inventive nature is all due to hard-wired instincts.
Since then, the question of how much the bee brain can manage has been repeatedly tested.
Despite having a noggin the size of a grass seed, About 0.0002 percent of our sizea recent study found that honey bees are surprisingly smart.
These insects as well as learn from each other You’ll use tools, but you can also count to zero and perform basic math formulas.
The question is, how can a tiny calculator, the size of a seed, turn problem-solving skills into something as complex as taking off the cap of a soda bottle?
Clearly, von Frisch’s prejudice against big brains remains with us today. Although a zoologist, admitted He argued that bees are capable of “amazing intellectual feats” but that they do so only by instinct and fail “when suddenly faced with an unfamiliar task.”
Von Frisch would be skeptical, since opening the caps of sugary drinks is unlikely to be a task that bees evolved to perform in nature. It’s possible that the bees got lucky this time and found a sweet reward, wandering blindly against the slightest resistance.
On the other hand, nature can surprise us. For example, in a clogged honey bee brain, a single neuron sometimes Contact up to 100,000 other cells.
This is amazing.
I forget where I read it, but I recently saw the question being asked, “Can cells make decisions and change their minds?” This is an article about the behavior of amoeba.
It is truly profound to contemplate the origins and commonalities of thought inherent in all life.
— Hvaldimir #StandWithUkraine #Guerrilla Gardener (@Hvaldimir1) May 25, 2021
in 2017 surveya bumblebee was trained to roll a ball into a goal for a reward. To score points, the insects had to copy each other’s movements and learn from their mistakes, which was surprisingly easy.
“Such ‘tool use’ was once thought to be exclusive to humans, then primates, then marine mammals, and then birds,” the researchers say. say: I wrote In 2017.
“We now recognize that many species have the ability to imagine how a particular object might be used to achieve a goal.”
Bees may be capable of much more than we once thought, despite their small neuronal circuitry. The next time you enjoy lunch outdoors, try being careful about what you drink.
A previous version of this article was published in May 2021.
