Colour insight
thevisual system of bees is more sophisticated than believed, claims a study conducted at the University College London (ucl) that showed the insects solved complicated colour puzzles.
The study sheds light on how brain resolves one of the most difficult challenges of vision: recognising different surfaces under different colours of light. Such conditions might prevail when bees look for flowers in the dappled light on the forest floor. The findings appear in the online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
For the study, R Beau Lotto and Martina Wicklein from the ucl Institute of Ophthalmology trained bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) 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 lit by four differently coloured lights