Honey bee turned out to be able to understand the concept of "zero"

bySmudge 9000

"Discovery of 0 (zero)"Is an important scientific accomplishment that has expanded the world of science as well as the world of mathematics, and greatly contributed to human development. It has been discovered that bees can be understood with respect to "concept of zero" which has been considered to be understandable only to a limited number of creatures such as humans.

Numerical ordering of zero in honey bees | Science
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6393/1124

Honeybees zero in on nothing - RMIT University
https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2018/jun/honeybees-zero-in-on-nothing

Honey bees can understand the surprisingly complex concept of zero - Vox
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/6/7/17437640/bees-zero-math-humans-science

It is only a limited part of "elite" such as mammals including human beings that can understand "the concept of zero". A study that "bees" will be added to the elite club was published in Science Journal Science.

It was the research group of Dr. Scarlet Howard of Royal Melbourne University (RMIT) who verified whether bees understand the concept of zero. I am studying "mathematical ability" of a bee known for having high intelligence among insects, such as learning other bee techniques.

In the experiment, I first drew a square or triangle mark on a white card and let the bee understand "number". The number of the mark represents "number", and by placing the reward of sugar water of the favorite bee favorite under the smallest number of marks among the plural cards, that is, the smallest number card, I trained bees.


After training, bees understood that the number of large and small, gathered in the smallest place of the mark drawn on the card. Even examples like "3 and 4" and "2 and 1" were able to earn rewards at places with small numbers, so it was confirmed that they understand the numbers.

Here, the researchers presented cards representing "zero" that did not draw any marks, but even though they were not trained with zero cards, the bees became white cards It was confirmed that I stayed 60% to 70% longer, and it turned out that I understood the concept of zero. In the test including this zero card, we know that as the difference gets bigger like "6 and 0", we choose exactly zero.


The discovery that honeybee, known for having outstanding intelligence among insects, can understand "concept of zero" is received with the shock of scientists. While there are 80 billion nerve cells in the human brain, there are less than 1 million nerve cells in the bees. If we can elucidate the mechanism by which advanced calculations can be performed with fewer neurons by studying the brains of bees with high intelligence despite few neurons, it can not be diverted to AI technology utilizing neural network technology It is expected.