Posted on 10/19/2022 12:09 / Updated on 10/19/2022 12:14
(Credit: Marcelo Ferreira/CB/DA Press)
If you are asked to write a series of numbers, you are more likely to start with the smallest and work up to the highest. This is the natural order in which we learn to read numbers. But according to a study published in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesHumans are not the only ones who read numbers in this way. It seems that bees have the same ability.
The paper’s authors explained that “bees may not count in the same way as vertebrates…but they can certainly extract a number of visible targets.” To conduct the research, the scientists used a can of Chateau Fontarney wine to reward bees when they identified numbers.
They were trained to associate numbers with the reward of wine. Then, they were able to order previously untried numbers from left to right according to their size.
According to the study, the finding suggests that left-to-right numerical preference may have a biological basis. “In an arbitrary principle, the left-to-right mapping direction during evolution may have been imposed by brain asymmetry,” the authors say.
Scientists already knew that bees had a knowledge of mathematics. One The study conducted in the United Kingdom He found that bees are able to solve math problems based on visual cues. “This does not mean that bees or other non-verbal animals do not understand numbers, but it does indicate that animals use non-numerical properties to solve mathematical problems they often encounter if such information is available,” said one of the study’s authors.
