Researchers in England successfully taught bumblebees to roll a mini ball towards a target area in a study which revealed learning abilities of the insect which were not known until now. Additionally, the bees were found to solve the task in a different way than what was taught to them, suggesting that observer bees did not simply copy what they saw, but also improved upon it, a researcher said.

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The study, published in the journal Science, suggests that the species whose lifestyle demands advanced learning abilities could learn entirely new behaviours under ecological pressure. The project's supervisor and co-author Professor Lars Chittka, from QMUL's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, said that the study puts a break to the old notion that small brains constrain insects to have limited behavioural flexibility and only simple learning abilities.

Previous researches have shown that bumblebees could solve a range of cognitive tasks, but the tests conducted then involved tasks similar to the bees' natural foraging routines, such as pulling strings to obtain food.

This study, on the other hand, examines bees' behavioral flexibility to carry out tasks not naturally encountered by the insects. "We wanted to explore the cognitive limits of bumblebees by testing whether they could use a non-natural object in a task likely never encountered before by any individual in the evolutionary history of bees," said Dr Clint Perry, joint lead author and also from QMUL's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences.

In the experiment, the bees were supposed to move a ball to a specified location in order to obtain food as a reward. The insects were first trained to locate the ball on a platform. The bees that learnt the technique from a live demonstrator learned the task more efficiently than others.

The Chittka lab researches how bees navigate and forage for food. Bees are important pollinators and play a vital role in producing the food we eat.