Bees see patterns in differences

Humans can categorise objects in ways that aren't just based on what they look like. We know a rowboat and a luxury yacht are both boats, but that one is "expensive", a way of describing the yacht not based on sensory input. For a long time, scientists thought that humans were about the only creatures capable of abstract thinking, but in 2012, French scientist Martin Giurfa showed that bees can also find patterns.

In the experiment, the bees were given a little food on a plate, on which two symbols had been drawn. The two symbols looked the same, but they were sometimes arranged horizontally, other times vertically. This arrangement determined what kind of food was on the plate. The bees quickly learned to identify the symbol arrangements, and select the best food.