6 ms·

Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects

221 points by Brajeshwar 1y ago

jason-richar15 1y ago
[dead]
vlan121 1y ago
I was unable to find the paper. I'm still wondering, if it is a cross-over experiment, as: > The circles were in different positions at each room in the maze, but the bees still learned over varying amounts of time to fly toward the short flash of light associated with the sweet food. Do not state, if the light suddenly changed in the rooms. If not, other factors might come into place.
- ryandv 1y ago
  Here is what would appear to be the paper: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41218757/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41218757/ To clarify, the CNN article asserts that this is the "first [discovered] evidence" that bees possess this capability, not that bees are the first insect to have ever developed this capacity, as the headline may suggest.
sitkack 1y ago
We are learning so many wonderful things about Bees! They can count https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21222227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21222227 Bees play https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33369572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33369572 https://www.science.org/content/article/are-these-bumble-bees-playing-toys https://www.science.org/content/article/are-these-bumble-bee... All of this reinforces my belief that nearly everything is conscious and aware, we differ in a capabilities and resolution but we are all more similar than we are different. Spider Cognition: How Tiny Brains Do Mighty Things https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46003146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46003146
- an0malous 1y ago
  What is your definition of “conscious” here? Like it has thoughts and feelings?
- johnisgood 1y ago
  I love bees and ants, but I love bees the most. I would recommend people to study the behavior of bees and ants. Additionally, honey, propolis, etc. are super healthy, and we can thank bees for that.
  - baxtr 1y ago
    Not that I want to curb your enthusiasm for bees, but… I recently read that honey bees in particular get the most attention from humans lately, so they are kept in high numbers. This has some adversarial effect on other pollinators, which hurts ecosystems more than it helps.
    - johnisgood 1y ago
      Why would what you said curb my enthusiasm for bees though? Can you provide me more specifics on this by the way? > This has some adversarial effect on other pollinators, which hurts ecosystems more than it helps. What are those adversarial effects, what other pollinators, and how does it hurt the ecosystem more than it helps? I do not mind bees having kept in higher numbers, and beekeepers can do it anywhere without affecting the ecosystem, I believe.
      - baxtr 1y ago
        I am no expert at all in this topic! So please take this with a grain of salt. I just have the feeling (maybe wrongly) that the love and focus for bees is having detrimental/ unwanted effects on the ecosystem. Here some more articles / discussions: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44505552 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44505552 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44792207 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44792207 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35668879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35668879
vjerancrnjak 1y ago
It’s interesting that Hellen Keller describes her experience, before language acquisition as timeless, no perception of time at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40466814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40466814 I’m curious if this experiment actually tests for time perception at all or if it’s a very different effect that we attribute as being actual experience of time.
metalman 1y ago
this is such an amazing discovery, with hundreds of thousands of insect species left to determine there time processing abilities, which of course could never be atributed to the basic ability to navigate, it is the work for so many indispensible scientific institutions to take on this essential groundbreaking work
michaelcampbell 1y ago
> Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects We have no idea what other insects can do this or when they got the ability. Sounds more like a first in Scientists. (tongue somewhat in cheek)
- nkrisc 1y ago
  Yes, it means it’s the first insects we know of with this ability. It of course has no bearing on whether other insects can and we simply don’t know yet.
  - nomel 1y ago
    I imagine we could predict fairly well if we assume perception of time is a requirement for complex return-to-base type navigation.
- parpfish 1y ago
  this might be more of "it's hard to find a behavioral experiment that proves you're using time" rather than "it's hard to find an animal that uses time"
michaelbuckbee 1y ago
Different scientist and different set of experiments, but a much more fun and educational video of bees + time: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xlGuBT5GT10 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xlGuBT5GT10
RickJWagner 1y ago
Bees, buh. We’ve known about the early bird since Ben Franklin’s day.
fullstop 1y ago
When I think of insects, I see them as tiny microcontrollers. In my head bees have a little shift register to measure time. While ants have control over each limb, they mostly move by rotating two tripods one at a time. It's like they turn on an output for three legs, turn off the output, and then turn on the output for the other three legs. Ants can walk backward, though, so perhaps it is more like a half-bridge rectifier with multiple channels. They're like little organic ICs.
- nhecker 1y ago
  I read a paper long ago (so there's no chance of my recalling the source!) and one of the takeaways was that in a cockroach one of the neural ganglia basically had a binary "run!" mode that was flipped on instantly if sense nerves very close to it were triggered. So when researchers tapped or blew air on the rears of the roaches the roach in question would sprint away, its powerful legs being efficiently driven at full tilt by this little sprinting circuit without needing any input or interaction from the more complex main brain. Imagine getting used to that effect! "Ahhh! Why am I suddenly running and where am I going to steer this runaway body?"
  - fullstop 1y ago
    That is so cool. > "Ahhh! Why am I suddenly running and where am I going to steer this runaway body?" I wonder if it's tied to the optical sensors to steer toward darker places.
  - jlawson 1y ago
    Humans have that too. Startle response, withdrawing from pain (hot stove), blink response upon incoming object - all these happen without involving the higher brainstem at all. I think some of them barely even connect with the brain.
    - rkomorn 1y ago
      Isn't this part of the comment thread basically about reflexes?
John-Tony 1y ago
[dead]
anthk 1y ago
Cats know to wait too. So they must have some concept of time.
- fullstop 1y ago
  I have an automated feeder which will open when their collar is near, but is time limited. Each cat has a different allotment so that they don't get chonky. They walk up to it and wait a few seconds. If it doesn't open, they go off and do something else and try again later. They don't sit there and try to pull the machine apart. This could be explained by hunger levels, though, and knowing that they are used to eating whenever they feel like that.
- mikkupikku 1y ago
  Cats perceive time as a fourth spacial dimension.
- anonzzzies 1y ago
  Yep, we have a timed feeder; they go to it a few minutes before it dispenses and ten stare at it; never at another time.
montroser 1y ago
https://youtube.com/shorts/xlGuBT5GT10?si=1oH7LTicJut143sC https://youtube.com/shorts/xlGuBT5GT10?si=1oH7LTicJut143sC
foo-bar-bat 1y ago
Lots of bees are dying suddenly, for multiple reasons. Here is a (sensationalized) summary: https://youtu.be/qWsBZbnt_4A?si=3AcS7IdGT41gF598 https://youtu.be/qWsBZbnt_4A?si=3AcS7IdGT41gF598 Professional nerds in silicon valley and beyond might consider whether they can help, and how. My understanding from long conversations with a beekeeper who has lost millions of bees, including entire colonies remote from agricultural and residential pesticides and artificial colony technology (which are some of the hypothesized causes blamed) is there is a mix of a) pathogens, and b) global supply chain homogeny distributing the pathogens mixed into various agricultural products eg mulch and soil, and c) environmental factors to include possibly RF which have been observed to destroy previously healthy colonies very quickly and then also scramble or interfere with the colony division/expansion process where a queen starts over. To include in some cases the queens apparently getting lost and/or leading astray their entire swarm of minion bees during the fragile process of relocating. This getting lost is apparently a new puzzling phenomenon. Anyway, it would be bad if large fragile ecosystems upon which many species including ours depend, were deprived of key pollinators. There is probably some very smart insightful person or team here on HN who could help and profit from helping on a global scale. Edit. Typos
- altruios 1y ago
  Professional nerds are already working on the problem of helping bees pollinate. Their solutions are not that popular yet. https://www.beevt.com/ https://www.beevt.com/ More professional nerds should be working on keeping bees healthy, but that's probably outside the purview of tech nerds.
yehat 1y ago
That's interesting, given that scientists don't even know what the "time" is. But if that study helps finding those answers, I guess it is just fine to continue the push.
Atlas667 1y ago
A bunch of anecdotal evidence follows: There's this popular notion that humans are fundamentally different beings to everything else, which I believe is just a form of narcissism. If intelligence is used to navigate the world, then it is derived FROM the world, and your role is to be able to use those facts in your mind to change the world. I'm sure a wolf is as, or more, intelligent at surviving in the wild, with the tools it has, than your average suburban adult. Wolves understand distance, time, sun-time light levels, resource economy, body-energy economy, they know prey behaviors, complex hunting tactics, the basics of sound transmission, they know about self security, seeking adequate shelter, they know the basics about fall damage and how that may relate to height/weight, they know how to step when running, they know momentum, etc They absolutely do calculate a very very basic physics and animal psychology. Because, essentially, beings know/are intelligent about the things related to their survival. They have to be, its their existence. Therefore I speculate bees may know more about time than even this article suggests. And probably as well as sound transmission and perception and maybe even air pressure due to flying being such an important role for them. Maybe they also have a basic space-time vulnerability conception. They for sure have excellent home etiquette and social awareness. Im sure having a tiny brain doesnt eliminate the basic physics processing capacity that all beings need, maybe it just makes it shallower.
- assemblyman 1y ago
  In the same vein, I always wondered if * the vast majority (including me) are not really very intelligent. We have a lot of "state" that's transferred from generation to generation. Once in a while, a very small percentage of people make advances and they filter through society and improves (or maybe just changes) the state. We collectively gives humans credit for these improvements but it's not the species but those specific people who created that jump in capabilities. * this notion of inherited pride or inherited achievement is very common. This leads to being proud of membership in a group (country, religion, tribe, corporation, university etc.) and also of instinctively rejecting ideas put forth by others (e.g. see the amount of derision vegetarians and especially vegans attract). * achievement/progress is also time-scale dependent. While we get smug about our progress, if it ends up destroying the one planet we have, it will be incredibly stupid. Humans fundamentally are not capable of thinking long-term. Everything around me was not made by me. I don't even understand how I would potentially make most of these from scratch without using machines made by other people or knowledge acquired over time (see first bullet above). Within the framework provided to me, I can convince myself to reason and act but the framework itself is my operating system. Of course, I like to think I am intelligent and reasoning but it's all in a box. I feel this describes almost everyone I know except for a few outstanding scientists I have worked with.
cuckmaxxed 1y ago
Dr. Mark Powell: How do you know right from wrong? Prot: Every being in the universe knows right from wrong, Mark. Dr. Mark Powell: Suppose someone did do something wrong? Committed murder or rape, how would you punish them? Prot: Let me tell you something, Mark. You humans, most of you, subscribe to this policy of eye for an eye, a life for a life. This is known through the universe for its stupidity. Even your Buddha and your Christ had quite a different vision but nobody's paid much attention to them not even the Buddhists or the Christians. You humans. Sometimes it's hard to imagine how you have made it this far.
polishdude20 1y ago
I think it's a bit of a stretch to say flashing lights are a stimulus bees have never seen before. Branches, leaves etc swing in the wind and oscillate letting sunlight through at intervals this causing the perception of flashing lights.
andyjohnson0 1y ago
There should be a name for the tendency to of humans to discount the depth and sophistication of the subjective experience of animals. From insects to primates, it is so prevalent.
- mikkupikku 1y ago
  I don't think it's an innate tendency, but rather an aspect of some cultures. For instance, I have heard that the people native to orangutan ranges traditionally considered them to be a sort of people, at least in a way, and I've read that when Carthaginian explorers first encountered gorillas they though they were a peculiar tribe of primitive people.
  - sitkack 1y ago
    The literal translation of orangutan in Malay is "person of the forest".
- 93po 1y ago
  I highly recommend Robert Fuller on Youtube for anyone who wants to better understand the shared experiences between humans and animals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kQb-badp1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kQb-badp1s This video made me change my approach to consuming animals - I realized that just because animals are dumber than humans doesn't mean they don't have real, meaningful life experiences. And I'd be a dick to deprive them of those experiences. There's also some hypocrisy in us wanting hyper intelligent AI to have compassion for humans and the human experience even though we're dumber than it, but us not doing the same for animals.
neoden 1y ago
I don't think we should be surprised by this. A creature that needs to operate its body in 3d environment, perform complex manipulations with objects, participate in social interactions, probably use some sort of planning to optimise pollen harvesting activities has very good chances to be acquainted with the concept of time in one way or another. What is indeed fascinating is how scientists invent all these experiments
j45 1y ago
Imagine what the bees have been thinking of humans all this time - treating them like they can't process time.
ProllyInfamous 1y ago
One of my favorite memories was of watching a single bee re-orientate after a total eclipse ruined her day's heliocentric map. It was such a rare event that "evolution" didn't explain her more than simply mechanical response to something uniquely different that day. — former beekeeper
Alex04 1y ago
Interesting point
uslic001 1y ago
I started beekeeping with my first hive in April this year. I find it very fascinating. It has helped me control my emotions as you have to be calm around them. Knock on wood, I have not been stung yet (I always suit up when I open the hive). My hive is thriving, but I did not harvest any honey to make sure they make it through their first winter. I have been fighting small hive beetles but so far have not had any significant infestation of varroa mites.

221 points by Brajeshwar 1y ago

[dead]

I was unable to find the paper. I'm still wondering, if it is a cross-over experiment, as: > The circles were in different positions at each room in the maze, but the bees still learned over varying amounts of time to fly toward the short flash of light associated with the sweet food. Do not state, if the light suddenly changed in the rooms. If not, other factors might come into place.

ryandv 1y ago
Here is what would appear to be the paper: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41218757/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41218757/ To clarify, the CNN article asserts that this is the "first [discovered] evidence" that bees possess this capability, not that bees are the first insect to have ever developed this capacity, as the headline may suggest.

sitkack 1y ago

We are learning so many wonderful things about Bees! They can count https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21222227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21222227 Bees play https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33369572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33369572 https://www.science.org/content/article/are-these-bumble-bees-playing-toys https://www.science.org/content/article/are-these-bumble-bee... All of this reinforces my belief that nearly everything is conscious and aware, we differ in a capabilities and resolution but we are all more similar than we are different. Spider Cognition: How Tiny Brains Do Mighty Things https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46003146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46003146

an0malous 1y ago
What is your definition of “conscious” here? Like it has thoughts and feelings?
johnisgood 1y ago
I love bees and ants, but I love bees the most. I would recommend people to study the behavior of bees and ants. Additionally, honey, propolis, etc. are super healthy, and we can thank bees for that.
- baxtr 1y ago
  Not that I want to curb your enthusiasm for bees, but… I recently read that honey bees in particular get the most attention from humans lately, so they are kept in high numbers. This has some adversarial effect on other pollinators, which hurts ecosystems more than it helps.
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    Why would what you said curb my enthusiasm for bees though? Can you provide me more specifics on this by the way? > This has some adversarial effect on other pollinators, which hurts ecosystems more than it helps. What are those adversarial effects, what other pollinators, and how does it hurt the ecosystem more than it helps? I do not mind bees having kept in higher numbers, and beekeepers can do it anywhere without affecting the ecosystem, I believe.
    - baxtr 1y ago
      I am no expert at all in this topic! So please take this with a grain of salt. I just have the feeling (maybe wrongly) that the love and focus for bees is having detrimental/ unwanted effects on the ecosystem. Here some more articles / discussions: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44505552 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44505552 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44792207 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44792207 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35668879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35668879

vjerancrnjak 1y ago

It’s interesting that Hellen Keller describes her experience, before language acquisition as timeless, no perception of time at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40466814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40466814 I’m curious if this experiment actually tests for time perception at all or if it’s a very different effect that we attribute as being actual experience of time.

metalman 1y ago

this is such an amazing discovery, with hundreds of thousands of insect species left to determine there time processing abilities, which of course could never be atributed to the basic ability to navigate, it is the work for so many indispensible scientific institutions to take on this essential groundbreaking work

michaelcampbell 1y ago

> Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects We have no idea what other insects can do this or when they got the ability. Sounds more like a first in Scientists. (tongue somewhat in cheek)

nkrisc 1y ago
Yes, it means it’s the first insects we know of with this ability. It of course has no bearing on whether other insects can and we simply don’t know yet.
- nomel 1y ago
  I imagine we could predict fairly well if we assume perception of time is a requirement for complex return-to-base type navigation.
parpfish 1y ago
this might be more of "it's hard to find a behavioral experiment that proves you're using time" rather than "it's hard to find an animal that uses time"

michaelbuckbee 1y ago

Different scientist and different set of experiments, but a much more fun and educational video of bees + time: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xlGuBT5GT10 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xlGuBT5GT10

RickJWagner 1y ago

Bees, buh. We’ve known about the early bird since Ben Franklin’s day.

fullstop 1y ago

When I think of insects, I see them as tiny microcontrollers. In my head bees have a little shift register to measure time. While ants have control over each limb, they mostly move by rotating two tripods one at a time. It's like they turn on an output for three legs, turn off the output, and then turn on the output for the other three legs. Ants can walk backward, though, so perhaps it is more like a half-bridge rectifier with multiple channels. They're like little organic ICs.

nhecker 1y ago
I read a paper long ago (so there's no chance of my recalling the source!) and one of the takeaways was that in a cockroach one of the neural ganglia basically had a binary "run!" mode that was flipped on instantly if sense nerves very close to it were triggered. So when researchers tapped or blew air on the rears of the roaches the roach in question would sprint away, its powerful legs being efficiently driven at full tilt by this little sprinting circuit without needing any input or interaction from the more complex main brain. Imagine getting used to that effect! "Ahhh! Why am I suddenly running and where am I going to steer this runaway body?"
- fullstop 1y ago
  That is so cool. > "Ahhh! Why am I suddenly running and where am I going to steer this runaway body?" I wonder if it's tied to the optical sensors to steer toward darker places.
- jlawson 1y ago
  Humans have that too. Startle response, withdrawing from pain (hot stove), blink response upon incoming object - all these happen without involving the higher brainstem at all. I think some of them barely even connect with the brain.
  - rkomorn 1y ago
    Isn't this part of the comment thread basically about reflexes?

John-Tony 1y ago

[dead]

anthk 1y ago

Cats know to wait too. So they must have some concept of time.

fullstop 1y ago
I have an automated feeder which will open when their collar is near, but is time limited. Each cat has a different allotment so that they don't get chonky. They walk up to it and wait a few seconds. If it doesn't open, they go off and do something else and try again later. They don't sit there and try to pull the machine apart. This could be explained by hunger levels, though, and knowing that they are used to eating whenever they feel like that.
mikkupikku 1y ago
Cats perceive time as a fourth spacial dimension.
anonzzzies 1y ago
Yep, we have a timed feeder; they go to it a few minutes before it dispenses and ten stare at it; never at another time.

montroser 1y ago

https://youtube.com/shorts/xlGuBT5GT10?si=1oH7LTicJut143sC https://youtube.com/shorts/xlGuBT5GT10?si=1oH7LTicJut143sC

foo-bar-bat 1y ago

Lots of bees are dying suddenly, for multiple reasons. Here is a (sensationalized) summary: https://youtu.be/qWsBZbnt_4A?si=3AcS7IdGT41gF598 https://youtu.be/qWsBZbnt_4A?si=3AcS7IdGT41gF598 Professional nerds in silicon valley and beyond might consider whether they can help, and how. My understanding from long conversations with a beekeeper who has lost millions of bees, including entire colonies remote from agricultural and residential pesticides and artificial colony technology (which are some of the hypothesized causes blamed) is there is a mix of a) pathogens, and b) global supply chain homogeny distributing the pathogens mixed into various agricultural products eg mulch and soil, and c) environmental factors to include possibly RF which have been observed to destroy previously healthy colonies very quickly and then also scramble or interfere with the colony division/expansion process where a queen starts over. To include in some cases the queens apparently getting lost and/or leading astray their entire swarm of minion bees during the fragile process of relocating. This getting lost is apparently a new puzzling phenomenon. Anyway, it would be bad if large fragile ecosystems upon which many species including ours depend, were deprived of key pollinators. There is probably some very smart insightful person or team here on HN who could help and profit from helping on a global scale. Edit. Typos

altruios 1y ago
Professional nerds are already working on the problem of helping bees pollinate. Their solutions are not that popular yet. https://www.beevt.com/ https://www.beevt.com/ More professional nerds should be working on keeping bees healthy, but that's probably outside the purview of tech nerds.

yehat 1y ago

That's interesting, given that scientists don't even know what the "time" is. But if that study helps finding those answers, I guess it is just fine to continue the push.

Atlas667 1y ago

A bunch of anecdotal evidence follows: There's this popular notion that humans are fundamentally different beings to everything else, which I believe is just a form of narcissism. If intelligence is used to navigate the world, then it is derived FROM the world, and your role is to be able to use those facts in your mind to change the world. I'm sure a wolf is as, or more, intelligent at surviving in the wild, with the tools it has, than your average suburban adult. Wolves understand distance, time, sun-time light levels, resource economy, body-energy economy, they know prey behaviors, complex hunting tactics, the basics of sound transmission, they know about self security, seeking adequate shelter, they know the basics about fall damage and how that may relate to height/weight, they know how to step when running, they know momentum, etc They absolutely do calculate a very very basic physics and animal psychology. Because, essentially, beings know/are intelligent about the things related to their survival. They have to be, its their existence. Therefore I speculate bees may know more about time than even this article suggests. And probably as well as sound transmission and perception and maybe even air pressure due to flying being such an important role for them. Maybe they also have a basic space-time vulnerability conception. They for sure have excellent home etiquette and social awareness. Im sure having a tiny brain doesnt eliminate the basic physics processing capacity that all beings need, maybe it just makes it shallower.

assemblyman 1y ago
In the same vein, I always wondered if * the vast majority (including me) are not really very intelligent. We have a lot of "state" that's transferred from generation to generation. Once in a while, a very small percentage of people make advances and they filter through society and improves (or maybe just changes) the state. We collectively gives humans credit for these improvements but it's not the species but those specific people who created that jump in capabilities. * this notion of inherited pride or inherited achievement is very common. This leads to being proud of membership in a group (country, religion, tribe, corporation, university etc.) and also of instinctively rejecting ideas put forth by others (e.g. see the amount of derision vegetarians and especially vegans attract). * achievement/progress is also time-scale dependent. While we get smug about our progress, if it ends up destroying the one planet we have, it will be incredibly stupid. Humans fundamentally are not capable of thinking long-term. Everything around me was not made by me. I don't even understand how I would potentially make most of these from scratch without using machines made by other people or knowledge acquired over time (see first bullet above). Within the framework provided to me, I can convince myself to reason and act but the framework itself is my operating system. Of course, I like to think I am intelligent and reasoning but it's all in a box. I feel this describes almost everyone I know except for a few outstanding scientists I have worked with.

cuckmaxxed 1y ago

Dr. Mark Powell: How do you know right from wrong? Prot: Every being in the universe knows right from wrong, Mark. Dr. Mark Powell: Suppose someone did do something wrong? Committed murder or rape, how would you punish them? Prot: Let me tell you something, Mark. You humans, most of you, subscribe to this policy of eye for an eye, a life for a life. This is known through the universe for its stupidity. Even your Buddha and your Christ had quite a different vision but nobody's paid much attention to them not even the Buddhists or the Christians. You humans. Sometimes it's hard to imagine how you have made it this far.

polishdude20 1y ago

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say flashing lights are a stimulus bees have never seen before. Branches, leaves etc swing in the wind and oscillate letting sunlight through at intervals this causing the perception of flashing lights.

andyjohnson0 1y ago

There should be a name for the tendency to of humans to discount the depth and sophistication of the subjective experience of animals. From insects to primates, it is so prevalent.

mikkupikku 1y ago
I don't think it's an innate tendency, but rather an aspect of some cultures. For instance, I have heard that the people native to orangutan ranges traditionally considered them to be a sort of people, at least in a way, and I've read that when Carthaginian explorers first encountered gorillas they though they were a peculiar tribe of primitive people.
- sitkack 1y ago
  The literal translation of orangutan in Malay is "person of the forest".
93po 1y ago
I highly recommend Robert Fuller on Youtube for anyone who wants to better understand the shared experiences between humans and animals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kQb-badp1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kQb-badp1s This video made me change my approach to consuming animals - I realized that just because animals are dumber than humans doesn't mean they don't have real, meaningful life experiences. And I'd be a dick to deprive them of those experiences. There's also some hypocrisy in us wanting hyper intelligent AI to have compassion for humans and the human experience even though we're dumber than it, but us not doing the same for animals.

neoden 1y ago

I don't think we should be surprised by this. A creature that needs to operate its body in 3d environment, perform complex manipulations with objects, participate in social interactions, probably use some sort of planning to optimise pollen harvesting activities has very good chances to be acquainted with the concept of time in one way or another. What is indeed fascinating is how scientists invent all these experiments

j45 1y ago

Imagine what the bees have been thinking of humans all this time - treating them like they can't process time.

ProllyInfamous 1y ago

One of my favorite memories was of watching a single bee re-orientate after a total eclipse ruined her day's heliocentric map. It was such a rare event that "evolution" didn't explain her more than simply mechanical response to something uniquely different that day. — former beekeeper

Alex04 1y ago

Interesting point

uslic001 1y ago

I started beekeeping with my first hive in April this year. I find it very fascinating. It has helped me control my emotions as you have to be calm around them. Knock on wood, I have not been stung yet (I always suit up when I open the hive). My hive is thriving, but I did not harvest any honey to make sure they make it through their first winter. I have been fighting small hive beetles but so far have not had any significant infestation of varroa mites.