Bumblebees Have Learned To Read Simple Morse Code–An Ability Seen Only In Humans And Vertebrates

Bumblebees Have Learned To Read Simple Morse Code–An Ability Seen Only In Humans And Vertebrates

Bumblebees Have Learned To Read Simple Morse Code–An Ability Seen Only In Humans And Vertebrates SWNS A new study is the first to show that an insect can differentiate between different durations of visual cues. In Morse code, a short duration flash or “dot” denotes a letter “E” and a long duration flash— or “dash”—means letter “T”. Until now, the ability to discriminate between “dot” and “dash” has been seen only in humans and other vertebrates, including macaques and pigeons. Researchers at Queen Mary University of London built a special maze to train individual bees to find a sugar reward at one of two flashing circles, shown with either a long or short flash duration. The short flash – or “dot” – was associated with sugar, while the long flash – or “dash” – was instead associated with a bitter substance, quinine, that bees dislike. At each room in the maze, the position of the “dot” and “dash” stimulus was changed, so that bees could not rely on spatial cues to orient their choices. After…