The study shows for the first time that insects can play with small wooden balls. Does this say anything about their emotional state?
Monisha Ravisetti is a science writer for CNET. She talks about climate change, space rockets, math puzzles, dinosaur bones, black holes, supernovae, and sometimes philosophical thought experiments. Previously, she was a science reporter for the start-up publication The Academic Times, and prior to that, she was an immunology researcher at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. In 2018, she graduated from New York University with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, physics, and chemistry. When she is not at her desk, she tries (and fails) to improve her ranking in online chess. Her favorite films are Dunkirk and Marseille in Shoes.
Are bumblebees blocking your way from home to car? no problem. A new study offers an interesting and very interesting way to fend them off. Give animals a small wooden ball and they can get excited and stop scaring you on your morning commute.
On Thursday, a team of researchers presented evidence that bumblebees, like humans, enjoy playing with fun gadgets.
After participating in 45 bumblebees in several experiments, it became clear that the bees took the trouble to repeatedly roll wooden balls, despite the fact that they had no obvious motivation for this. In other words, the bees seem to be “playing” with the ball. Also, like humans, bees have an age when they lose their playfulness.
According to an article published last month in the journal Animal Behavior, young bees roll more balls than older bees, just like you would expect children to play games more than adults. The team also saw that male bees rolled the ball longer than female bees. (But not sure if this bit applies to human behavior.)
“This study provides strong evidence that insect intelligence is much more complex than we thought,” said Lars Chitka, professor of sensory and behavioral ecology at Queen Mary University of London, who led the study. “There are many animals that just play for fun, but most examples are young mammals and birds.”
Knowing that insects like to play is very important, because it gives us the opportunity to conclude that they may experience some positive emotions. This raises important ethical questions about how we treat them. Do we respect non-verbal animals as much as possible? Will we register them as conscious beings?
Frans B.M. de Waal, author of the bestselling book Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals summarized part of the problem by saying that “because animals cannot speak, their feelings are denied.”
This may be especially true for bees. For example, a 2011 study found that bees experienced changes in brain chemistry when they were aroused or simply shaken by the researchers. These changes are directly related to anxiety, depression, and other psychological conditions that we are used to seeing in humans and other mammals, however, perhaps because insects cannot speak, let alone cry or facial expressions, we usually do not think they have feelings.
“We are providing more and more evidence.
I mean, watch the video below and you’ll see a swarm of plump bees rolling around on a ball like they’re in a circus. It’s really cute and very sweet because we know they only do it because it’s fun.
Chittka and other scientists placed 45 bumblebees in an arena and then showed them different scenarios in which they could choose whether or not to “play”.
In one experiment, insects gained access to two rooms. The first contains a moving ball, the other is empty. As expected, the bees preferred the chambers associated with the movement of the ball.
In another case, the bees may choose an unobstructed path to the feeding area or deviate from the path to the place with a wooden ball. Many people choose a ball pool. In fact, during the experiment, one insect rolled the ball from 1 to 117 times.
To prevent mixing of variables, the researchers tried to isolate the concept of the ball game. For example, they did not reward the bees for playing with a ball and eliminated the possibility that they were subjected to some kind of stress in a non-ball chamber.
“It’s certainly fascinating and sometimes fun to watch bumblebees play some sort of game,” Queen Mary University researcher Samadi Galpayaki, lead author of the study, said in a statement. small size and small brain, they are more than little robotic creatures.”
“They may actually experience some kind of positive emotional state, even a rudimentary one, like other larger furry or not-so-furry animals,” Galpage continued. “This discovery has implications for our understanding of insect perception and well-being and hopefully encourages us to respect and protect life on Earth more.”
Post time: Nov-10-2022
