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posted by cmn32480 on Monday February 27 2017, @04:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the honey-that-is-un-bee-lievable dept.

Even tiny brains can learn strange and tricky stuff, especially by watching tiny experts.

Buff-tailed bumblebees got several chances to watch a trained bee roll a ball to a goal. These observers then quickly mastered the unusual task themselves when given a chance, researchers report in the Feb. 24 Science. And most of the newcomers even improved on the goal-sinking by taking a shortcut demo-bees hadn't used, says behavioral ecologist Olli Loukola at Queen Mary University of London.

Learning abilities of animals without big vertebrate brains often get severely underestimated, Loukola says. "The idea that small brains constrain insects is kind of wrong, or old-fashioned."

Source: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/score-bumblebees-football-insect-social-learning


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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday February 27 2017, @08:06PM (1 child)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @08:06PM (#472497) Journal

    Crows and Parrots may seem smart, as you suggest. But can they tweet?

    Can they re-tweet?

    Can they click Like? Follow? Subscribe? Thumbs Up?

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    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @08:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @08:45PM (#472514)

    Crows and Parrots may seem smart, as you suggest. But can they tweet?

    Well, you are talking about birds...