Bumblebees have been found to share a complex cognitive ability with humans.
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 If you've ever had to feel your way around a room in the dark,
00:06 you probably use familiar objects to guide the way.
00:09 And in the brain, this task is more complicated than it seems.
00:12 How do you know you're touching a light switch
00:14 without being able to see it?
00:15 The answer is in your brain's ability
00:17 to create mental pictures and make
00:18 a connection between the feeling of an object and how it looks.
00:22 According to Inverse, this kind of intelligence
00:24 was only observed in apes and dolphins until now.
00:27 A study from Queen Mary University of London
00:29 found that bumblebees can also remember
00:31 objects they see or touch.
00:33 The experiment gave bumblebees objects of different shapes--
00:36 a cube and a sphere, with some containing something
00:39 bumblebees like-- sugar water.
00:41 Bees who had touched these objects in the dark
00:43 could recognize them on sight.
00:44 And bees who only saw the objects through a window
00:47 could recognize them by touch alone.
00:49 Researchers aren't sure exactly how bumblebees use this power,
00:52 but it's a big new piece in the puzzle of whether or not
00:55 bees have consciousness.
00:56 The study was published in the journal Science.
00:59 (upbeat music)