The Mind of a Bee
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- 16,99 €
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- 16,99 €
Publisher Description
A rich and surprising exploration of the intelligence of bees
Most of us are aware of the hive mind—the power of bees as an amazing collective. But do we know how uniquely intelligent bees are as individuals? In The Mind of a Bee, Lars Chittka draws from decades of research, including his own pioneering work, to argue that bees have remarkable cognitive abilities. He shows that they are profoundly smart, have distinct personalities, can recognize flowers and human faces, exhibit basic emotions, count, use simple tools, solve problems, and learn by observing others. They may even possess consciousness.
Taking readers deep into the sensory world of bees, Chittka illustrates how bee brains are unparalleled in the animal kingdom in terms of how much sophisticated material is packed into their tiny nervous systems. He looks at their innate behaviors and the ways their evolution as foragers may have contributed to their keen spatial memory. Chittka also examines the psychological differences between bees and the ethical dilemmas that arise in conservation and laboratory settings because bees feel and think. Throughout, he touches on the fascinating history behind the study of bee behavior.
Exploring an insect whose sensory experiences rival those of humans, The Mind of a Bee reveals the singular abilities of some of the world’s most incredible creatures.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chittka, a behavioral ecology professor at Queen Mary University of London, combines cutting-edge science with a rich historical perspective in this take on what it means to be a bee. His goal, which he accomplishes remarkably well, is to dispel the belief that an individual bee is nothing more than "a mindless cog" in a hive; instead, he argues, bees have "beautifully elaborate brains." He considers whether bees have individual personalities, experience consciousness, or dream, and in each case, using experiments he and his coworkers have undertaken, explores the likelihood of answers in the affirmative. He demonstrates that bees can be trained to recognize faces, "have a visual processing speed five times faster than humans," are capable of learning certain tasks that prove they comprehend the concepts of "above" and "below" quicker than primates, and can learn to use tools. Throughout, Chittka offers evolutionary explanations for many of the behaviors he describes—insects, for example, "were pre-adapted for flower color-coding hundreds of millions of years before there were any flowers." The knowledge on offer here is as entertaining as it is edifying. Readers won't look at bees the same way again.
