Scientists stunned as bumble bees solve a classic intelligence test

Bumble bees have demonstrated an impressive ability that scientists once believed was limited to humans and other animals with much larger brains. In a new study, the insects successfully completed a completely unfamiliar object manipulation task despite never being taught how to solve it. The findings challenge a long-standing belief that spontaneous problem solving is unique to humans and other large-brained vertebrates. More than a century ago, psychologist Wolfgang Köhler showed that chimpanzees could suddenly solve unfamiliar problems by combining objects in new ways, such as stacking boxes to reach a banana hanging overhead. Those experiments became classic examples of insight and spontaneous problem solving in animals.