Waggle-Maths
Bees might be rather good mathematicians. It seems bees could have a finely-tuned ability to calculate averages. The famous ‘waggle dance’ is a shimmy that bees returning to the hive perform for their fellow workers, a communication tool that helps guide others to the best flowers.
Researchers found that, rather than heading off in the specific direction indicated by a single waggle dance, bees leaving the hive tended to fly out at a heading that was the mean of the angles indicated in a number of dances. This implied, as David Tanner (University of California) said, that bees:
“…apparently keep a mental log of the directions indicated in the dance… I find it remarkable that, with a relatively simple brain, they can do something so mathematically complex.”
What with the rat’s newfound ability to make snap estimates I’m beginning to feel a little inadequate in the face of all this natural-world numeracy. But it does at least reinforce the idea that mathematical ability is less an artefact of human culture and more a skill expressed across the animal kingdom. There’s some comfort that if I can’t do my tax return, then maybe my cat can…