Ptera Hunter's Blog - Posts Tagged "a-totally"
Bees like playing with balls!
Play behavior has been observed in animals with big brains, like mammals, birds, and octopuses. A study from Queen Mary University found that bees, too, may enjoy play behavior.
In a standard conditioning experiment, a team headed by Professor Lars Chittka tried to teach bees to roll tiny balls to obtain a food reward. So far, it's pretty standard stuff.
Then, someone noticed that some of the bees rolled balls even when no food incentive was available. This triggered the standard response of scientists to something unexpected: Hmm. That's odd. I wonder if...
They decided to see if the bees were playing, doing an activity for the sheer joy of a behavior, not for the promise of a reward. They gave the bees a choice of two paths out of their hive. One led straight to food; the other had balls they could interact with.
The bees preferred the path that gave them access to the balls, and like us, younger bees spent more time playing than did the older ones. We see this same pattern in mammals, and play may serve the same function in both kinds of animals, honing life skills and physical fitness. Like us, bees engage in pattern recognition, directional navigation, and even a rudimentary form of "proto-counting."
Bees have thus become the first insect known to seek out objects to have fun. As with us, play is likely to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh4a1...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eUGj...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...
In a standard conditioning experiment, a team headed by Professor Lars Chittka tried to teach bees to roll tiny balls to obtain a food reward. So far, it's pretty standard stuff.
Then, someone noticed that some of the bees rolled balls even when no food incentive was available. This triggered the standard response of scientists to something unexpected: Hmm. That's odd. I wonder if...
They decided to see if the bees were playing, doing an activity for the sheer joy of a behavior, not for the promise of a reward. They gave the bees a choice of two paths out of their hive. One led straight to food; the other had balls they could interact with.
The bees preferred the path that gave them access to the balls, and like us, younger bees spent more time playing than did the older ones. We see this same pattern in mammals, and play may serve the same function in both kinds of animals, honing life skills and physical fitness. Like us, bees engage in pattern recognition, directional navigation, and even a rudimentary form of "proto-counting."
Bees have thus become the first insect known to seek out objects to have fun. As with us, play is likely to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh4a1...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eUGj...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...
