Happy Thought for 11 November 2022

Have a Happy Thought:

 

Birds do it, Bees do it…

 

No, as much as Ella Fitzgerald would want you to believe that we’re talking about falling in love (although honestly, go listen to that song!),

We’re talking about… Play!

 

Yep, we’ve known for years that some bird species are very playful.

Anyone familiar with Kea will have heard so. many. stories.

And of course, anyone who’s had a pet bird, or been caught in too much of a YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok loop, has seen a parrot or canary or budgerigar playing around.

 

But it was only recently that some scientists pretty conclusively found some bees very obviously playing.

Basically, the investigators set up a bee-sized obstacle course, between the bees and some food. In part of the obstacle course, there were little wooden balls that the bees could move. On the other side, those wooden balls were glued in place.

The bees definitely preferred the option where they could move the balls around.

And even after the food source was removed, the bees kept coming back to the playground – sorry, obstacle course – to roll the balls around.

 

Tag yourself: I’m in image f, going backwards and knocking into things on the way

Figure 2. Ball-rolling action. The nine panels show the sequence of a ball-rolling action over time lasting, in this instance, approximately 4 s (time stamps in red at top left). The bee (a) approaches the wooden coloured ball while facing it, (b) touches the ball with her forelegs, (c) holds onto the ball using all of her legs, (d–h) rolls the ball past the yellow ball and (i) finally detaches from and leaves the ball. See Supplementary Video S1 (speed ×0.5).

Hiruni Samadi Galpayage Dona, Cwyn Solvi, Amelia Kowalewska, Kaarle Mäkelä, HaDi MaBouDi, Lars Chittka,

Do bumble bees play?, Animal Behaviour, 2022, ISSN 0003-3472, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2022.08.013.

 

 

Finally, you need to know that the type of bee involved in this investigation are Bombus terrestris. Also known as….

Buff-tailed bumble bees

Alliteration and adorableness

Amazing.

 

 More reading in case you’re interested:

1. Did you know that “play” has a definition? It requires five elements:
1. play occurs in a way that is not functional in the context in which it is expressed (i.e. play-fighting is more about strengthening social bonds than actually learning how to fight)
2. play is voluntary/spontaneous behaviour, and appears rewarding to the animal, in and of itself (i.e. there isn’t a treat that you get because you’ve completed the task)
3. play behaviour as performed differs from the serious counterpart of the behaviour, either structurally or the context in which it's formed

                                                  i.     Sub-point: Play is often (but not always) done more by young animals.

4. play behaviour is repeated; it occurs over and over again
5. play is not a forced activity (i.e. it’s not a compulsion, or a stress response)
1. The published study about bees playing
2. An easier to read article written about the study about bees playing
3. A delightful radio interview about the study about bees playing and other weird and wonderful science facts