Scientists discover that bees can do complex additions and subtractions

Bees are extraordinary! Its ability to pollinate plants is exclusively responsible for a third of all the crops we consume daily. Not only that, but they have a complex language, being able to communicate with each other as far as they are and where are the flowers. In addition to all this, they make a delicious honey. Now scientists have discovered that they can even do basic arithmetic.

Australian and French researchers have shown that bees can add and subtract. This discovery, in addition to the initial discovery that bees would understand the concept of zero, tells us that having a small brain does not necessarily limit one's mathematical skills. The results are reported in Science Advances .
"Our findings suggest that the number of non-human animals with mathematical abilities is greater than previously detected" said Professor Adrian Dyer of the RMIT University.

For the experiment, the team trained 14 bees flying freely to visit a Y labyrinth, with the right solution, a reward in sugar and a little quinine. for the wrong answer. At the entrance to the labyrinth, there were blue and yellow shapes. The blue forms represented in addition and the forms represented in yellow.

After four to seven hours and about 100 training attempts, the bees learned that blue meant +1 and yellow -1. The researcher then began to change the place of the reward and the calculation needed to get there. Bees have been able to apply the learned rules to new problems.

"Although the specific task of addition / subtraction can not be directly visible in the bees' natural environment, the skills and cognitive qualities required to perform the arithmetic task are likely to occur. To be ecologically advantageous " she wrote.

The results are amazing, not only because of the complexity of the tasks, but also because they remind us that it is not necessarily the size of the brain that counts, but how you are doing it. ; use.

"If mathematics does not require a huge brain, there will be new ways to work the program in the long run" commented Dyer.