Bumblebees Mix-up Memories, Too, Just Like Humans Do

Bumblebees are busy little guys. But just like humans, they forget things or mix up memories. In fact, a new study published in the journal Current Biology shows that sometimes, they have trouble juggling multiple memories.

Bees don't quite compare with humans, who have an estimated 85 billion neurons, but these insects hold about 960,000 neurons, giving them quite remarkable memory. However, lead study author author Lars Chittka, a professor at Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, notes how essential it is that they make space for memory.

"Anyone who's ever found themselves misremembering things in an exam will be able to sympathise with these bumblebees," she explained, in a news release. "That people form false memories is well understood but it has never been seen in other animals before."

Reserachers at Queen Mary University of London discovered bees' memory lapse via a series of training experienced that associated a black-ringed flower with food. Researchers trained the bees to associate the flower with dinner time and soon after, the bees targeted the plant looking for a snack.

Just a few days after training, the researchers changed things up a bit. They trained the bees to associate food with a yellow flower.
Then, the researchers presented the bees with a range of different designs. They found that the bees seemed to prefer yellow flowers accented with black rings, mixing old memories with new ones.

"There are a lot of similarities between our own memories and those of other animals," Chittka concluded. "The more we know about the way that memory works in the animal kingdom the more we'll be able to understand our own memory and the problems we have with it."