[Pollinator] Bees Solve Complex Colour Puzzles

[Matthew Shepherd (Xerces Society)]

Bees Solve Complex Colour Puzzles
11/9/05
Full article on Science Daily, at : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/11/051108081637.htm 

Bees have a much more sophisticated visual system than previously thought, according to a new UCL (University College London) study in which bees were able to solve complicated colour puzzles.

In the UCL study, scientists from the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology trained bumblebees to find artificial flowers of a particular colour using a nectar reward. They then tested the bees' ability to find the same flowers in scenes that were simultaneously illuminated by four differently coloured lights – UV-yellow, blue, yellow, and green. To solve this puzzle, the bees had to effectively segment the scene into its different regions of illumination, and then find the correct flowers within each region.

"When all the surfaces in a scene are under the same light, identifying a particular surface when the global illumination changes is in principle an easy problem to solve, since all vision needs to do is adapt itself to the scene's average colour. Far more difficult is to recognise the surface or object under multiple lights simultaneously. Our study shows that the tiny brain of the bee can not only solve this difficult task, which the most sophisticated computers still can't resolve, but suggests they do so by using the colour relationships between objects in a scene that were statistically most useful in their past experience."
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The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
Protecting wildlife through science-based advocacy, education, 
and conservation projects since 1971. To join the Society, make a 
contribution, or read about our work, please visit www.xerces.org.

Matthew Shepherd
Director, Pollinator Conservation Program
4828 SE Hawthorne Boulevard, Portland, OR 97215, USA
Tel: 503-232 6639 Fax: 503-233 6794
Email: mdshepherd at xerces.org 
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