Bees Show Time-Savvy Skills in Flashing Light Test

Quick Smiles:

• Bumblebees can tell the difference between short and long flashes of light, similar to Morse code.
• Researchers found bees learned to seek sugar rewards by recognizing flash durations, not location or smell.
• This discovery highlights the impressive time-processing abilities of even tiny insect brains.

A groundbreaking study has revealed that bumblebees can distinguish between different lengths of visual cues, a skill previously observed only in humans and select vertebrates.

At Queen Mary University of London, researchers trained bees using flashing lights in a specially designed maze to test their ability to recognize short “dot” and long “dash” signals, rewarding them with sugar for choosing the correct flash duration.

“We wanted to find out if bumblebees could learn to the difference between these different durations, and it was so exciting to see them do it,” said PhD student Alex Davidson.

Importantly, bees chose the correct flashing light even when sugar was not present, demonstrating that their choices were based solely on time perception, not smell or location.

“Since bees don’t encounter flashing stimuli in their natural environment, it’s remarkable that they could succeed at this task,” Davidson explained.

This new finding suggests bees have a sophisticated capacity for processing time, possibly with fundamental implications for our understanding of animal intelligence and for designing efficient artificial neural networks.

“Processing durations in insects is evidence of a complex task solution using minimal neural substrate,” said Dr. Elisabetta Versace, senior lecturer in psychology at Queen Mary.

Bees continue to amaze scientists, inspiring us with their tiny but powerful brains.

Want more uplifting discoveries? Stay tuned for more stories that highlight the wonders of the natural world!

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