A study has shown for the first time that bees order their numbers from left to right.
According to Western research, even before children learn to count, they begin to organize growing quantities from left to right.
People from different cultures use an Arabic script that reads from right to left.
The subject of the mental number line is still being debated between those who think it's innate and those who think it's cultural.
Recent evidence shows that newborn babies and some animals are able to organize numbers from left to right.
In order to find out if the same holds true for insects, the study was published in the journal PNAS.
At least five bees can be counted, according to Agence France-Presse.
The two hemispheres of their brains are different. The existence of the mental number line is thought to be a result of this trait they seem to share with humans.
The honeybees were flown into a wooden box.
Sugar-water was used to lure the bees to look at the wall of the box.
The number of items for each individual bee was the same, but the shapes of the group were different.
After the bees were trained to fly towards their set number of items, the researchers removed them and put out more items on the other side of the boxes wall.
They took the sugar-water reward and watched how the bees moved.
80% of the bees who were trained to select the three items would head to the left when only one item was on either side, and the other 80% would go to the right when five items were on either side.
The bees that were trained to go for number one went to the right and the bees that were trained to go for five went to the left.
Why is it that humans don't think of numbers from left to right as animals do? It was more complex than choosing between nurture and nature.
Culture can still modify the mental number line even if it's innate.
The bees have to follow nature's instructions.
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