Ball-Rolling Bumble Bees Just Wanna Have Fun

The first known insects to play are ball-rolling bumblebees. The scientists recorded these tiny fliers in a number of new experiments.

The behavior play is when animals engage in behavior that does not provide them with food, shelter or another immediate benefit. Most examples of play with objects come from animals, but there is no record of it in insects.

Whether a group of animals are sentient depends on whether they have inner feelings and experiences. Birds and mammals are considered sentient beings by scientists. Samadi Galpayage is a graduate student at Queen Mary University of London and the lead author of a bumblebee study.

Scientists taught bumblebees to roll balls in exchange for a prize. Galpayage, Chittka and their colleagues had to take away the reward to determine if ball rolling was a form of play. bumblebees can move in an unimpeded path to a solution in a feeding area with the help of a system set up by them. Some of the wooden balls were fastened to the floor and others were loose. The bees didn't have to interact with the balls to get the sugar.

The team observed every bee in the experiment over the course of 54 hours. The bees moved the balls in different ways. The bees had different motives for feeding and ball- rolling, according to the findings of the researchers. The bees were interested in rolling the balls.

The bees were trained to associate ball rolling with chamber colors. When the chamber was empty, the bees preferentially entered it.

The research doesn't show any motivation for the bees' play behavior. It would require analyzing which neurotransmitters are activated during ball rolling to determine if the insects are playing for pleasure.

The leader of the ball-rolling study who was not involved in the new work wondered about the behavior's ultimate function. He says there is a need to develop motor skills in order to be interested in moving objects.

Heather Browning is an animal welfare expert and philosopher at the University ofSouthampton in England.

Browning, who was not involved in the study, says they don't have a good idea of the relationship between behavior and sentience. The probability of sentience is raised by evidence such as play behavior, complex brain structure and learning ability.

The study seems to be pointing in that direction.