Problem-solving spreads both socially and culturally in bumblebees
Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - 15:02
in Biology & Nature
String pulling is a popular problem-solving task for investigating cognitive abilities in vertebrates, but has never been tested in insects. Now, a social insect has joined the club, according to a study publishing October 4, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Lars Chittka from Queen Mary University of London, UK, and colleagues. The researchers found that bumblebees can figure out how to pull a string to get a sugar water reward, that watching this helps other bees learn to do it too, and that this new skill continues to spread through a colony even after the original string-puller is gone.